Note: Written in the summer of ’22, originally posted on my old blog.
a meditation on the flow-
when i first started
i was not sure how to deal with it
jetlagged daytime naps felt both like nests and ordeals-
i’d sleep and sleep and be so fully aware of sleeping that when i woke up i’d be shocked i was still
in havana
maybe part of me wanted to leave
part of me wanted to sleep forever
but i knew there was not much for me left behind
not much yet to explore
– felt that i had squeezed cyprus to its last drops, left it hanging –
so i learned how
to recognise myself in these patterns
learned how
to make a home out of total strangers
walked myself into situations that did me good and out
of those that didn’t.
days were long and outstretched in vast moments of time and space that made no sense together
had no continuity i could make sense of
or follow.
history made my head feel so heavy and hollow
and desperation arose out of helpless conversations
that locals drove.
growing through all this felt oddly uncomfortable
– a ξερίζωμα-
it came to a surprise that others felt just the same
– a long list of advice compiled by my first travel partner felt like an embrace,
carrying it with me, for she was the first to understand it-
discomfort felt like the default [moving] home, for the moment, the
[(in)definite] foreseeable future
travellers carry on their backs
in medium-size rucksacks.
messages and story replies “looks like you are having the BEST time”/”hope you are having the BESTEST time” felt like a joke, a beating hand even
especially in a place where having fun felt a lot like disrespect
or worse, ignorance,
and trying to understand what was happening was the only thing that mattered.
By the time i returned to La Habana, a month later, I could see how much it had grown in me, this travelling feeling,
when complains about Cuba from new arrivals felt like a personal offense;
this country is not here at your disposal, does not exist for your enjoyal, this is a country that
has suffered far too much
to bend under the weight
of your criticism
and expectations.
Resilience is what defines it, and
resilience is what i’ve learned
and what i took away with me
-even in just tiny droplets,
compared against the struggle of theirs-
but this is what threated this flow- this
travelling
flow –
so
delicately
that i found myself in a dorm bed of a hostel in the next country, next few destinations
trying to stay awake to feast on this feeling as much as possible,
this feeling of
awe
of how everything has played out together
“i am in love with how it all played out, together”,
life is a fabric, a patchwork, of different moments,
and when you get enough comfort out of
weaving it
– or at least get captured by, used to, the meditation of its movement-
you might get lucky enough
to be able to see it
see how it all works together,
and how it all has led you to where you stand now.
