Sing it, Fiddler friends: TRANSITION!

That fine line between tradition and transition, stepping away from what you've known to move forward into an unpredictable future

Fiddler on the Roof’s most famous song may be the one entitled “Tradition,” but the musical itself could have been called “Transition.” The theme of the story is how to maintain one’s balance in rapidly changing circumstances.

Transition is a time of upheaval, rarely a smooth ride, no matter what the topic at hand. It might be physically painful, like the last stage of labor in childbirth. It might be mentally, socially, and relationally complicated, like gender change. Or, it might be more subtly layered and complex, like the transition of starting a new career or a new relationship.

This week, Andy and I are transitioning away from our three months of backpacking Southeast Asia, so we can step into our rather non-traditional future as overland travelers in Walter—our trusty expedition vehicle still in progress.

It’s complicated. And a little messy. We don't have a home to return to, but Walter’s habitation box is not yet livable. We don't really know what kind of time frame it will take to finish the rig, but we don't want to miss our window of good weather for traveling up to Alaska. We fancy ourselves travelers and explorers, but we are returning—at least for the next few months—to a life of being grounded in one place. Even the weather will be a big transition for us, as we leave behind the joys of sandals, sunblock, and cool showers for the rigors of March in a high mountain valley in Montana, still solidly winter.

Aside from the summer-like climate, our one week in Australia has been helpful as an intermediate step. Life here is very similar to life in the United States in many ways, particularly on the visible surface. I can read all the signs along the road and the menus in the restaurants, and I basically know how most everything works. I recognize familiar family dynamics and social interactions, and I know how to get help for any needs that might arise. I can understand what is being said around me—even behind my back. There are many, many differences in our cultures and flora and fauna, of course, but Australia feels more like home than anywhere else we’ve been since we flew out of Los Angeles back on December 9.

This current stage of transition we are entering will likely continue for the next several months, even up to a year or so. We need to:

• fly from Australia to the United States, including a layover in Hawaii

• set up camp in a friend’s guest room for a couple of nights

• arrange to rent another friend's fifth wheel trailer as our temporary lodging and move it onto an RV pad

• bring the contents of our storage space (the truck and everything that goes in it) back to what’s left of Andy’s former shop (It’s pretty much devoid of tools now, but we still have access to it until sometime in May.)

• finish the truck build

• finish wrapping up the loose ends of our residential-style life in Montana

• set out for life on the road in our tiny rolling home

• shed the layers of “normal” life that have shaped our identities for our entire lives thus far, and figure out who we are as roaming nomads without a schedule to obey

Yeah. Other than that, we don't have much going on over the next few months.

The future is always uncertain, and none of the items on that list are exactly easy-peasy old hat, but that last one is a doozy.

How do you let go of everything you’ve ever known? What does it take—mentally, emotionally, relationally, spiritually—to completely reinvent what life looks like? Is it even feasible to flip-flop from a life of home ownership and relative stability, to a life of wandering Southeast Asia with only a backpack, to a life back in a place that looks and feels like home, but no longer is, to a life of nomadic wanderings in a big yellow truck? That’s a lot of flip-flops.

Will we handle all this transition well? We really don't know. In some ways, our lives feel as shaky as a fiddler on the roof.

It will be an adventure. Stay tuned.

Until next week,

Sherry

P.S. Thirty-two years ago, when my theatre-loving husband and I were first dating, we were both involved in a large-scale production of Fiddler on the Roof. He played Motel the tailor and I was the props manager, happy to stay behind the scenes. We chose “Sunrise, Sunset,” a song from the musical about Motel and his bride Tzeitel and the passage of time, to be sung as part of our wedding ceremony. Later, at the reception, we included another Fiddler touch. The bottle dance, an energetic and athletic part of Motel and Tzeitel’s wedding reception scene, was always a crowd pleaser. The cast members who had performed it in our production were absolutely heroic, legendary, never once dropping a bottle during two full weekends of performances. A year later, this same brilliant group of guys recreated a comical version of that bottle dance for us, and performed it at our wedding reception. But this time it was not some off-Broadway production. He really married the girl. Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset. Quickly fly the years. And here we are.