In response to a recent Instagram post, a friend recommended that we read a book entitled, Moominpapa at Sea by Tove Jansson. If someone we know recommends that we read a book, listen to a podcast, or check out an artist or film, we usually do. Our friend Beth is a long-time book publisher, Pedlar Press, for whom we had the privilege of designing a few books. We borrowed her recommendation from the library that very day.

For context, this was our post:
Change is good. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves to focus on building the new. Some days we just need to talk it through and remind ourselves how we got here, where we want to go, what matters most and how we want to live. That we want to continue making.

Moominpapa, for us, wasn’t a particularly likeable character. He tended to be autocratic, self-centred and not really a team player. He was of a generation that believed the man of the family needed to be the provider, thinker and decider of everything. Luckily, he had a very adaptable, intelligent, good-natured, self-sufficient family. Even agreeing to move from an idyllic paradise to what turned out to be an inhospitable island in the middle of a turbulent sea.

This paragraph, near the end of the story, resonated with us:
Moominpapa’s wife, Moominmama, said to her family, ‘Do you know, all the time we’ve been living here like this, I’ve had the feeling that we’re on an expedition somewhere. Everything is so different all the time, as if it was Sunday every day. I’m beginning to wonder whether it’s a good feeling after all. Of course, we can’t always be on an expedition. It has to come to an end sometime. I’m terribly afraid that it will suddenly feel like Monday again and then I shan’t be able to feel that any of this has been real…’
Moominpapa, in what is possibly his most sensitive response to any member of his family replies, ‘But of course it’s real. And it’s fine to feel that it’s always Sunday. It’s just that feeling that we had lost.’

That feeling is why we embarked on a moveable life back in 2014. We sought new experiences, inspiration, beauty and variety from the beginning. Life as an expedition is intoxicating and addictive. The most important thing we have learned in the past eight years is that this approach to living doesn’t depend on movement. To quote Ana Kinsella, ‘I am always on my way somewhere, even when I’m not moving.’

PATIENTBLOGEN:
Christian received chemo treatment number 11 yesterday, 11 of 16 unless we hear otherwise. The good news is that Christian’s Lamda Light Chain numbers are at 400 (as of two weeks ago), down from 9,700 on September 2nd. What this means is that the treatment is working! On Tuesday, we head to Princess Margaret Hospital, the preeminent cancer hospital in Canada, to meet with a Stem Cell Transplant Team. That light at the end of the current tunnel is getting brighter by the day.

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