Digital Nomad, a challenge at the Elance blogathon

Tonight I voluntarily placed myself on a mental rack, after all the mind petrifies if it is not stretched and challenged.  Seated at a workstation at The Common Room in Parkhurst, I am taking part in a blogathon arranged by Elance.  I am surrounded by writers, bloggers and journalists, pretty daunting.  We were given 3 topics to choose from, Digital Nomad, Reinvention of work or Key to happiness as a freelancer.  I have chosen Digital Nomad.

Next week marks my 46th birthday.  My eldest daughter Domi was born when I was 20, her brother Heath followed 22 months later.  Footloose and fancy free plans to travel were traded for motherhood.   Goals were revised, my 40’s were marked as the time when I would travel, when I would do the things forfeited in my youth.  These plans were my beacon in dark times, the times of nursing sick children, the times of financial hardship, the time of my divorce.  That beacon lighted my way, through the years.  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, between other joys, mothering rewards and a plethora of pains, tomorrow shone gilded with dreams.

Then guess what I did, just guess!  On the home run with the finish line in sight.  When I could almost feel tickets to unexplored places in my hands, I changed course.  I found a new light to follow.  At 35 I re-married, I married a man who wanted children!  A man who wanted to explore the world of parenting with me.  Fjord was born when I was 39 and Acacia soon after 42 candles were blown out, along with a set of dusty priorities.

Instead of riding the Orient Express, I do the mummy run, again.  Instead of walking the streets of New York, I take imaginary trips with Acacia to Pinky Hollow, her special secret place were all the deficiencies of reality exist.  Now the internet is the space where I explore and discover.  It suits my soul to be a digital nomad, traversing a world where there are no boundaries.  In the digital world I have made real friends, the fact that we have not met does not make them any less real.  This week I came across reference to Socrates and a hemlock bowl twice within a few days.  First in the brilliant book ‘Gentlemen and Players’ by Joanne Harris and then in a WWI poem ‘All the hills and vales along’ by Charles Sorley.  This repeated reference sent me on an online journey to about 300 BC, searching for information about Socrates and his death.  Mentally I experienced the unjust trial of a wise and brilliant man. I explored some of his teachings.  My time at a computer transformed me from digital nomad to digital time traveller.

My greatest joy is that when I leave the digital space, my reality exceeds any foreign fantasy.  What market of exotic spices could match the scent of my child’s hair?  What skyscraper can rival the warmth of my home?  Yes I would still love to experience the magic of international travel but I would never trade that for the magic of gingerbread men who run away (I hide them), fairy houses and the honour of being queen in my children’s kingdom.

Ah the nice (I better say that instead of sadistic) lady from Elance has just handed me a curve ball, I have to add the sentence “and I didn’t even order the fruit platter” to include in this post.  Well I have been seated at a banquet, and I didn’t even order the fruit platter.

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