Post 29 - On the freedom to leave and the freedom to stay

Efrat abramson
Jun 6
5 min read

5/6/2026

It's been a week since we left Mexico and moved to the United States. We've had a week of long roads. New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. Hundreds of miles of desert, heavy heat, vast skies, and endless roads, but wide, high-quality, and easy to drive. Well-organized rest stops and gas stations, and everything is going smoothly and comfortably. Gradually, I feel our nervous system is calming down after driving in Central America, where we were constantly on high alert, prepared for a surprise pothole, a tree with a high top, people in vehicles of all types and species, and animals, too. The landscape changes slowly, almost without us noticing. Low hills, rocks, and stubborn bushes that manage to survive in conditions that seem almost impossible. Later, they give way to coniferous forests and towering mountains that surround us. Long hours of driving, very little drama, and lots of space.

We stop along the way at special places - Petrified Forest National Park

Outside of Flagstaff, we spent two nights in a forest that reminded me of a Scout camp, with all the dust and pines.

We listen to the "One Song" podcast for hours and dive into the fascinating stories behind the Israeli songs that adorn our lives.

During the long, drawn-out hours, I found myself thinking less about the road and more about what awaits at its end.

In recent months, we have become accustomed to a life of movement. Almost every day has brought with it new decisions: where will we sleep tonight? What the next stop will be?, where we will find water, laundry, a shower, and internet. We have learned to live with uncertainty, and even love it. The freedom to choose each morning anew to continue has become part of our identity.

On the other hand, it's also very tiring. The challenge of living amidst uncertainty and the need to make countless small decisions every day that add up to a burden and fatigue.

And alongside the fatigue of the constant decisions, there is also a rare sense of freedom. The knowledge that the day can unfold in any direction, and that behind every turn in the road a new surprise may await in the form of a natural landscape, people, and fascinating life situations, from which we learn and grow wiser, and feel that our souls are opening up to the wider world with all the abundance it provides.

Colorful stops in the Albuquerque desert

And another night on the road, in the parking lot of a local winery, we raise a toast to good news.

And now, as we get closer to Santa Cruz and the moment when we will put the Bear in storage and stop the journey for a while, the change is not only happening in the landscapes; something is changing inside me as well.

I imagine a different kind of freedom.

The freedom found in knowing where I'll sleep tonight, and where I'll be in a week. The freedom to meet the same people more than once. The freedom of routine, of community, of a familiar place, and the familiar mother tongue.

For a long time, I thought of freedom primarily as movement. As the ability to travel, to discover, and to change direction. And now I'm exploring another kind of freedom. Freedom that doesn't come from the ability to leave, but from the ability to stay.

I don't think one is better than the other. Both are dear to me, and I learn and develop from both. And perhaps the real challenge is not to choose between them, but to learn to move between them. To know when it's time to open a map and set off, and when it's time to put down the backpack, slow down, and let the roots go deeper, and spread out somewhere in the invisible depths.

This week, which was seemingly just another week of long trips in the desert, feels like a bridge between one chapter in our lives and the next.

In the shamanic tradition, freedom is not measured by the distance traveled, or the options open to us, or how few obligations we have. True freedom begins somewhere else entirely.

It begins with the ability to be true to ourselves.

Listen to the inner voice beneath the noise of the world, others' expectations, habits, and fears. Agree to ask again and again: Who am I now? What is right for me in this moment? And, no less important, agree that the answer may change.

From a shamanic perspective, we don't just respond to reality. We are co-creators of it. With every thought, choice, intention, and action, we weave the threads from which our lives are woven.

Therefore, freedom is not just the ability to choose between different options. Freedom is the ability to choose the person we want to be within the reality given to us.

You can be free in a small house in a bustling city, or you can feel trapped on an endless road in the middle of the desert.

Because the deepest freedom is not related to where we are, but to the degree of presence, authenticity, and responsibility we bring to our lives.

And that is one of the great gifts of this journey for me. Seeing and experiencing a new world, but also meeting new versions of myself over and over again. Discovering that freedom is not a destination I arrive at, but an ongoing relationship with life, with my choices, and with the person I choose to be every day.

A wrong turn took us to the edges of Vegas, but we didn't stay.

And in the meantime, life, like life, takes care to remind us that philosophy also sometimes has to wait in the mechanic shop.

As I write this post, I'm sitting at the mechanic's again. Yes, the Bear is suffering again. This time we're in a town whose name is hard for me to pronounce - Pahrump, somewhere in Nevada, about an hour's drive from Las Vegas (we skipped it because we're already married and we gamble every day on the roads).

The temperatures here are challenging the weather app, and once again, we're changing plans and adapting to the situation. This time we replaced both batteries, glow plugs for those who understand, transmission fluid, in short, everything that the previous mechanic didn't do.