And the word of this journey is....

My friend Kirsten sent me a copy of a proposal she's working on and she used the word rhizomatous.

Hmmmm, never heard that word before, so on www.dictionary.com, it says:

producing or processing or resembling rhizomes.

A rhizome is:
A horizontal, usually underground stem that often sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Also called rootstalk, rootstock.

From the Greek, to cause to take root.

I've sorta settled in my home for at least the next few months. I say sorta settled because I stuffed two suitcases full of clothing, shoes and other little things and came on in. Right now, I'm sleeping on the floor. Hopefully, I'll steal Paul's mattress as he leaves for the Bay Area tomorrow.
Plus, I've never been one for settling. In deference to Pastor Glenn, there are two kinds of settling: the kind that you're always striving for something better and the kind where you stay in one place and take root. In a sense, I'm unsettled in both areas.
Already, I've made some contacts and gotten some leads. It's fantastic, but I'm striving to make sure that I don't give off the impression that I want to meet people for the exclusive purpose of getting a job. I want a job, for sure, but I also want to meet people just to meet people.

It's funny how my mind has been trying to process the initial stages of moving here. Part of it is so adventurous and so there is a greater sense of flexibility that occurs. All the things that go wrong are all part of the fun and part of the story that gets told with beer in the aftermath.

Yet, I'm trying to figure out where to set boundaries. After all, if I'm giving this at least an Administration, the Administration has to know where I stand. I walk around the District and see how people dress and how everyone talks and drinks their Starbucks and talks on the phone. Points of reference, I suppose. I have vowed with every fiber within me not to become a "suit" and that's still on. I think I can figure out a way to wear the costumes and not become the part.

It figures that there must be a psychological element to rhizomes. According to Carl Jung:

"Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains. (Prologue from "Memories, Dreams, Reflections")

Amen, Carl.