Month: August 2018

  • No One is Talking about God (Poetry)

    No One is Talking about God (Poetry)

    Quite a few months ago, I traveled down to the south of Costa Rica to visit friends living in a remote community on a very special stretch of coastline.

    I had a lot of time to reflect. A lot of time to sit in the dark too. Real dark, untouched by any trace of electric light.

    That kind of darkness opens us up to a kind of spirituality, or creativity, often blinded by the modern world. At least, it seemed that way to me.

    That kind of darkness brought me a lot of words. These are a few of them:

    god, wanderlust, woman, travel, ocean

    Talking about God

    I went to the ocean on a cloudy night, just to stare at darkness.

    I felt my heart beat faster as the waves rolled against the beach,
    and my body rolled too, in sympathy.
    This was solitude.
    Utter blankness upon the canvas of my cornea.
    This was emptiness.
    Division between water and sky barely visible on the horizon.

    My voice, when I sang out to that ocean beat,
    was unique in all the darkness,
    for it was the only thing that told itself to itself.
    The sea spoke to the moon,
    the raindrops spoke to the trees,
    the rocky beach spoke to the colonies of crickets —
    and then, there was me.

    I want so much to be a part of it.
    To lose track of my voice in harmony with the waves.
    To see my footprints disappear,
    my skin melt into the everything
    of that shifting, sucking darkness.

    I love my life, my body, my breath.
    Just, I want to be a part of it.
    The whole.

    You see, no one I know seems to be talking about god —
    it’s out of vogue to seek the divine,
    the mysterious, the ethereal and the invisible;
    children learn to count money but hear nothing of souls;
    we don’t care why we’re here as long as there’s football —

    And no one I know seems to be talking about god;
    we’re all too educated for that,
    leave it to the zealots and the black hats,
    write your gratitude journal and bow down to the fat cats —

    No, no one I know seems to be talking about god,
    but I want to find her,

    so I go down to the water and look into my own heart,
    because a wise teacher or two once said
    I would find a spark —
    there, where all the secret things we pretend not to believe in sing;
    where the ancient longing we don’t understand goes to hide;
    where the invisible and magical and wild abide.

    I heard, once, that god was at the heart of everything,
    including me.
    I read, once, that gods played and ate and shifted faces
    at the bottom of the sea.
    I knew, once —
    I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew —
    about the mysteries dancing at the horizon,
    where water meets sky,
    about the spirits who live between worlds
    and send stories with serpents and dolphins and dragonflies,
    about the beauty that gave birth to every single thing.

    But I forgot,
    we forgot,
    and I want so much to remember:
    I am part of it.

    No one I know seems to be talking about god,
    but, call me crazy,
    I want to find her.
    So every day, for a few minutes,
    I try to stare at darkness.
    I dive into that shifting, sucking water,
    and I look into my own heart.

    Originally published on Rebelle Society, July 2018.

    Written in November, 2017 at Finca Morpho.

  • “How Many Countries Have You Been To?” & Other Questions I Avoid

    “How Many Countries Have You Been To?” & Other Questions I Avoid

    Originally published on elephant journal.

    Nowhere on my website will you find a tally of countries I’ve visited. Not on my Instagram either.

    Several times, I’ve debated changing my policy about this. It appears to be de rigueur for writers and bloggers in my niche of adventure travel and digital nomadism. And, I am proud of the ground I’ve managed to cover in relatively few years.

    However, I’m much prouder of how I’ve covered it.

    Hitchhiking thousands of kilometers through Europe, learning (basic) Swahili in Zanzibar, building community in Costa Rica—these are the stories I want to tell about my years on the road, which numbers can never do justice.

    Numbers may tell you how many kilometers I walked, how many years I lived out of a backpack, or—yes—how many stamps I have in my passport. But numbers won’t tell you what the Phnom Penh pavement felt like under my bare feet, how my shoulders ached after carrying my life with me across Spain, or the many amusing (stressful) ways I crossed all those borders.

    I think you get my point. The number of countries I have visited is, like any other tally, just a number. It is not, in my opinion, very interesting information.

    Furthermore, it is already an exceptional privilege to travel as I have done. I am deeply grateful to sustainably maintain the nomadic lifestyle I find so exhilarating. It seems unnecessary to proceed to flaunt that privilege in such a one-dimensional way.

    I also dislike the rhetoric, only too common in the travel blogosphere, that “more countries = more happy.” There is no happiness equation. A fuller passport does not equate to a higher happiness index—though travel can certainly lead us down many paths to fulfillment. I am wary of contributing to this superficial conversation in any way.

    countries, travel, vagabonding, nomadic

    All that said, I would hate to raise objections without offering solutions. I wouldn’t waste your time with criticisms of displaying the “travel number” if I didn’t have some alternatives in mind.

    When I tell new friends about my vagabondish lifestyle, more often than not their first question is, “So, how many countries have you been to?” I’ve come up with a lot of ways to avoid (or transform) that one. Here are my favorites:

    1. “Let me tell you about my most recent trip to X.” Stays on topic, but narrows the conversation down to a specific, less superficial angle that I actually want to explore.

    2. “A lot… I’ve been living nomadically for quite a few years.” Vague, but hopefully avoids anything that might come off as boasting.

    3. “Honestly, I’d rather answer a different question.” The most direct answer, and usually goes over well when delivered with a genuine smile.

    4. “I actually don’t think it’s that interesting. Let me tell you a story instead.” Also direct, and opens space for the exchange to move toward a subject of mutual interest.

    5. Just tell them the number…once in a while, it’s easier to go with the flow and answer the damn question.

    I like these answers because most of them are rather versatile. The same tactics can help us to gracefully evade personal questions we don’t want to answer, small talk we don’t want to engage in, and norms of conversation we don’t want to support.

    I hope travelers with similar misgivings to my own may take away a helpful solution or two.

    May your backpack be light and your feet happy—no matter how many borders they’ve crossed!

    I also don’t really like “Where do you come from?” Stay tuned for some thoughts on that.