September, two years ago.  I was just outside Amsterdam, standing on the North Sea. It had rained all week. There was rain predicted for the next day.

I had come to Amsterdam as part of some freelance work I had been doing for an overseas company. I loved the work. It played to my talents and skills. It gave me a chance to do what I do best – build something new.

The promise had been that after months of free-lance, they would hire me full time, and then I could take all my planning and work of the previous few months and execute it.  I was excited. I was pumped.

I was fired.

No one really told me why. I never got a clear answer or a chance to discuss it. In the end, as I pieced it together and talked to others in the company, I came to realize I was simply the victim of a larger corporate struggle.

But in that moment? I was devastated.  Six months work. Six months emotional investment. Done. Over. Wasted.

Because when I work, I am all in. I’ve never had the knack of making anything, even my freelance work, “just a job.”  And six months, coming to know the company, the people, the dream, I was wrapped up in their success as if it were my own.

And now, it was done. I was no longer needed or wanted. Another log on the fire of internal politics.

And worse, I had four more days in Amsterdam before I flew home. I could not go back to lick my wounds. I was in a strange city without a friend to talk to.

The first day, I simply wandered the streets of Amsterdam. I walked and walked and walked. It is a beautiful city, one of few cities I believe I could live in. (I love cities, but not as a place to live.). Compact. Medival. Vibrant. Full of arts and museums and homes and wonders.

Not that I saw them. Not really. I look back at my pictures of that day, and they are horrible, random, products of habit rather than wonder. Honestly, I remember little about that day, except the rain and the canals. I walked. And walked and walked some more, as if the act of walking would somehow heal.

All it did, I think, was stall the pain. But at times, that is enough. At the time, it was all I could do.

The next day, I decided to take a tour into the countryside. Windmills. Villages. Seaside towns. Another rainy day as the bus shuttled us from village to village, past the fields with their dikes and canals, to and from museums. I actually remember some of it.

We stopped at one seaside town on the edge of the North Sea. Don’t ask me the name. It had lots of syllables. The busload of people flocked to the docks, to the little eateries along the main street.

I wandered. Past the edge of town, to a tiny little beach. No one was there. The sun came out. The first time I had seen it all week. I sat in the sand and took off my shoes and put them in the water. In the North Sea.

In my mind, the North Sea is a place of storms and wind and waves. I suppose I’ve read too many Norse legends in my day. But on that day, it was a place of utter peace. I took off my shoes and put my feet in the water. It was bracing and cold.

Something in me woke up.

Gratitude.

Yes, I had not gotten the work I had hoped for. Yes, the emotional investment of six months was wasted. I would never complete the dream I had seen in this company and my part in it.

But on the other hand. I was in the Netherlands. For a few days. With no responsibilities. On someone else’s tab. There could be worst things. As I sat on the beach, my feet grew numb, but my heart regained its courage. There would be new clients. New work. There would be others to help, and others who would appreciate my work.

I’d be OK.

I was of course.  We generally are. But it took the shock of a cold and still North Sea, normally the place of storms and struggle, to right me. To remind me that even the worst stormy places have their moments of peace. And that we need to grab them when they are offered. It was a lesson I needed to be reminded of. And a lesson that has stayed with me.

I remember the last two days vividly. I made the same walking journey I had made the first day, but it was like making the journey for the first time. I would take full advantage of being “fired” and enjoy the moment. Just the moment. I would not plan for the future r worry about it either. I would and did absorb the magic of being in a wondrous, new place. It was pure joy.

The North Sea has a whole different connotation to me. I don’t think of storms and ice. I think of the brief moment of grace it gave me. And the lesson it retaught me.

And the peace that we can find, even in the stormiest places.

Be well. Travel Wisely.

Tom