It is Saturday night. The little numbers on the bottom right-hand side of my screen read 1:09am…again. It’s probably time I went to bed and got some sleep, as I have to be up again in 5 ½ hours, but I wonder how I’m going to shift gears: bring my brain down from trying to explain the need for Seres in 1200 characters to a more regular rhythm that will help me sleep. Recently, I have taken to meditating for ten minutes each night before sleeping to assist this wind-down, and it seems to be helping.

As the PC makes its familiar little “goodnight” sound while shutting down, a memory from a past life pops into my head. The memory goes back to my former corporate life, when I would tease my colleagues about working late nights or on weekends. I can still hear myself, playful yet mildly chastising: “work to live, don’t live to work” – a mantra that I held close, making a conscious effort not to cross the line and allow myself to slip into the lifestyle of long work hours and weekends locked away in the office.

These lines have now become as blurred as my eyesight after countless hours starting at a computer screen, and the little devil on my shoulder raises a sardonic eyebrow at me: “mmm hmmm??” As I close my laptop and stumble wearily into bed, I can’t help but smile. Look at you now, I think: no weekends, AND no salary!

Preparing paper-crete panels

There can be no doubt that this project has taken me places and had me doing things that I never would have imagined – and not just working into the wee hours of the morning and over weekends. I can now add to my career as an engineer a list of sporadic jobs that I have taken on in order to keep the money coming in to fund the project: I have worked in a bar – and even on a bar – sending many an unsuspecting tourist well on their way to a wicked hangover; I have given massages in a Mayan Sauna; trained for a half-marathon; provided strategic business consulting and most recently I have donned the tool belt, picked up the hammer and turned to home renovations. It’s a long way from the work that I was doing 12 months ago, but I’m definitely still learning and my mantra has now changed it’s tune to “whatever it takes to get the job done”.

Sonoran Desert, Baja California Mexico

Thanks to Seres, I have journeyed to places that were never previously on the travel destination list. I have driven (on my own) from Oregon in the United States, down through Mexico and across into Guatemala and El Salvador – definitely one of the greater adventures of my life. I am just back from the beautiful islands of British Columbia, spending a week in Vancouver before taking Seres down to Seattle and Eugene, and planning ahead for research trips to Belize and Honduras early next year.

On my travels, I am blessed to have the opportunity to meet the most incredible and inspiring people, building networks and relationships that we weave into the ever-richer, always growing tapestry of this project. It is a bitter-sweet experience however: never being in the same place for more than 2 to 3 months at a time means that I am constantly saying goodbye to dear friends, never certain of when our paths will cross again (although certain that they will, one day). In this transient life, it is difficult to send down roots and become established in any one place. By necessity, my home has become your home and I have learnt to find comfort on a sofa, a mattress on the floor, the back of a car or in some cases even the back patio – realizing that a place to rest in the company of friends is a gift to be cherished. Gradually, I have changed my outlook: instead of reaching down to one place, I am sending out roots as mushrooms in the forest do: mycorrhizal fibres forming an underground network, that emerge and fruit when conditions are right. And during the times that are challenging or difficult, I wrap the Seres tapestry around me like a blanket, and find comfort in the smiles and words of people that have been empowered, motivated and inspired by this project to make positive changes in their lives.

I hope that in light of this, I can therefore be forgiven for those times when someone says to me “I wish I could do what you’re doing”, and I can do nothing more than stare back stupidly. As my tired brain, struggling to work out which time zone I am in, tries to process that comment, I can’t help but think: which part? The one where you give up your job to work for nothing? Or perhaps the part when you come to substitute Microsoft’s start-up and shut-down noises on the laptop for having a real person to say ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ to. Seres is the first thing I think about when I wake up, and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. It represents the greatest sacrifices I have ever made in my life, but I also believe it will represent the greatest achievement of my life. It is all-consuming, it is pervasive, it is intense: but it is my life. And I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Having said that, I still urge a degree of caution, and now whenever I hear someone saying “I wish I could have your life…” I cannot help but echo the wise words that a close friend shared with me recently:

“Be careful what you wish for…it may just come true.”