the way back

April 27, 2018
Skógar

This is story about going home.

Or this is the way I go back.

It's time to go, y'know?

Okay. So I have been lacing my shoes into roadways for years now. It's what I found after my world was emptied like a cupboard in the springtime. When I discovered that my life was a basin perfect for filling, this life is what fit best. The dream of escape became a real, actual place that I could carry with me wherever I went. All my desires and hopes and dreams and pieces and breaths could be folded up and slipped into my pocket and then I could slip into a stream going anywhere and be just fine.

This has been my life. A revolving spin of possibilities. Another restart always available.

It's a loose-holding business. What I mean is, I have been everywhere but never really somewhere. What I mean is, things fall through your fingers awfully fast sometimes. What I mean is, I have been up in the air for so long.

And maybe that's not really going to change. Even now, home feels like a temporary thing. A passing face of the moon on an endless sky. I'm planning on staying for eight months, which is a long time for me but I don't think it's actually that long. I'm skimming the surface, lightly kissing the ground. How are we supposed to measure time?

Sometimes, I find myself wanting change. In some ways, I am wanting more. Friends that I can see every week, community, a partner, a career...

Melbourne was a taste of another kind of possibility and even now, months after leaving, I guess it left a mark. An aftertaste.

Maybe the road is closing more doors than it is opening these days. There are so many things that I want that are difficult or entirely impossible on the road (like placing a line of glass jars lovingly on a kitchen shelf and then filling them with grains and spices). I want to be a better cook, practice yoga again, have rituals and routines that involve a favourite mug or french pressed coffee. I don't know if I've ever left the road wanting to be still, but a part of me is wanting.

I end up thinking a lot about what I want my life to look like—daydreaming of different rhythms, of holding the air in my lungs differently. Someone once said that people are happiest when they are growing and I don't know if that's true, but I feel like growing some new branches and reaching outwards again. I love this way of being and I know how to be like this. I know motion and an endless string of "see you later!"s. In my first journal post from the road, I wrote that I had become too comfortable and needed to discover new ways to push myself. And that still feels true, more than ever maybe. When the uncomfortable becomes comfortable, the search for discomfort has to begin all over again.

So I am beginning again (or trying to). Beginning and grateful.

My first trip to Europe was about self-realization. This one has been about relationships. Friendships. It has started with, ended with, and been filled with time spent with amazing persons that I don't get to see enough but when I do, it's always good. Nomadic life can be lonely and I have spent a lot of the last four years doing things on my own (which has allowed me to do a lot of things), but this seven month journey really highlighted what an amazing community I have around me. We're all a little scattered, thrown all over the world like seeds, but we grow together. We bloom. I am surrounded by so much love.

I appreciate every moment with every one. Walking 27,000 steps to the seaside in Athens just to watch the sunset, craving pizza in Amsterdam, drinking five cups of coffee every day in Heemskerk, cycling at dusk in Brussels, failing to find a single lively club in Berlin, watching two seasons of Frontier in two days, dancing with old friends at a wedding, day-drinking Czech beer in Prague with my best friend, snow in Poland, ruin bars in Budapest, celebrating the new year in Vienna with the shiniest man I know, going to a Cafe Central in every city we could find, getting lost in Romania, getting lost in Bulgaria, again drinking five cups of coffee every day but this time in Turkey, finding ibuprofen when his fever wouldn't break in Cappadocia, losing and finding my camera, discovering Berlin on a deeper level, wandering through flea markets and cafes, vegan donuts, vegan sushi, vegan pizza, old friends, new friends, women's nights, roadtrips, hitchhiking, mountains, walking, languages I can't understand, plane rides, passport stamps, puffins, reindeer, glaciers, free espresso, porridge, and so, so many miles.

My heart is open. My world is full. I am so in love with the whole thing.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this latest chapter in my wild, crazy life.

xx

Self portraits in Sólheimasandur near Vík, Iceland. April 2018.