The Wanderer’s Conundrum | “Split Between” [T]here
Cesária Évora, a morna singer from the archipelago of Cape Verde off the western coast of Africa, plays softly in the background. In her lifetime, she performed soul-piercing ballads, almost always barefoot. The depth in her song inspires us as we ponder, reflect, share, and write. In a way, she represents us, or who some of us want to become—ten wandering women and writers who’ve gathered in Bwejuu, Zanzibar—a fishing village on the eastern coast of the African island—coming together to explore the notion of duality, of feeling “split between,” and of the Portuguese word “saudade,” which is a deep longing for something or someone that was, or perhaps, something or someone that’s yet to be altogether.
I arrived in Zanzibar a few days ago, and for the second morning in a row, I awoke long before sunrise and walked to the beach so I could watch the sun rise above the aqua waters of the Indian Ocean with bare feet in the cornstarch white sands. My mornings have been greeted with local coffee and masala chai, birdsong, the sound of pomegranates and coconuts falling from the trees, and two brown dogs who seem to almost always be sleeping, their relaxation a metaphor for Mustapha’s Place, the rustic bungalow village where we are staying. From the open-air bungalow where we spend hours deep in writing prompts each day, I can see the sea. I look up every so often and take note of the changing tides throughout the day; the tide is high in the morning and at its lowest by mid-day, rising again in the late afternoon. I watch the fishermen walk out into the ocean with their buckets and handmade poles, fishing for octopus, calamari, and fish, their dark skin a stark and beautiful contrast against the bluest waters I’ve ever seen. The crows crow loudly. Women walk down the sandy paths between the village and the sea in bright kangas, some carrying their bounties in grain bags upon their head. More often than not, they are barefoot too.
I found myself here on a whim, almost by chance, though I believe I was meant to cross paths with the women hosting this workshop in a place so beautiful that it’s impossible not to tap into the wells of our creativity—which, for many of us, have been neglected, hindered, or muted by, well, life. Each of us long to find the words we’ve yet to write, to release them into the wild.
The women here are from all over the world. We all have unique stories, accomplishments, and wisdoms from our life experiences to share. Though we only met three days ago, we’ve learned more about one another’s upbringings, pasts, and dreams than we may know about some of the folks we already know and love. There’s a palpable sense of inspiration that comes from true vulnerability, and the most authentic storytelling is inspired by our deepest truths. Together, we are powerful. Together, we can change the world.
Our group is Kenyan, Ugandan, British, American, PhDed, activist-minded, creative, and independent. There are mothers, advocacy workers, and publishers. There is also a doctor of anthropology and a prana healer with eyes the color of the sea and 130 coconut trees on her property on the northern edge of the island.
We all have a purpose; some of us have many. As explorers and creatives, we are “global citizens,” as one woman reminds us. And it seems we all have both unique and similar struggles in life, namely for the latter—the struggle of, at times, craving stillness but belonging in many places with our perpetual sense of curiosity and quest for enlightenment.
I call this the “wanderer’s conundrum”—the feeling of belonging everywhere and nowhere all at once, craving both roots and discovery, the familiar and the unknown.
It’s just 21 days into the new year, which has been a deep (and necessary) window of introspection. I’ve now been fully freelance for fourteen months, and I’m only now feeling as though I’m in a hearty state of ebb and flow, allowing me to reshift my focus and creative energies to projects I’ve long neglected, to dreams I’ve put on pause, to words I’ve only rehearsed in my mind but haven’t put to paper, to stories I’ve yet to tell, and into the metaphoric vision boarding I’ve been actively exploring internally since I finally slowed down in November. While I’ve traveled extensively since I began this geographically independent journey, this is the first time I’ve been able to disconnect from paying work and focus only on my own words, which is an important reminder that our time is valuable beyond billable hours — a notion that I’m deliberately weaving into my day-to-day as part of a resolution, of sorts, to provide more meaning and mindfulness in my life. I’ve realized that some of the most significant things I do have little, if any, monetary value. And, sometimes, seashells, pinecones, and the last color of the sun before she fades below the horizon are my preferred currencies—the currencies of Pachamama.
I’m lounging in a dip-dyed hammock as I write this, unkempt, sunburnt, and freckly. In just six hours, I’ve written more than 4,000 words — a testament to how inspired I am on this island. I can’t remember a time in my womanhood when words flowed so freely. It’s a perfect 80 degrees, and I relish the sounds of Swahili and the scent of curries coming from the open-air kitchen just behind a giant coconut tree. Like Évora and much of the island, I’ve been barefoot since I arrived. Even the staff who make our juices and deliver our morning chapati bread do so with sunkissed toes. After all, “hakuna matata” — translating to simply “no worries” — is a common phrase and philosophy here in East Africa, one that maintains a sense of calm and harmony.
Now, the golden hour is again upon us, which means I’ve been up for twelve hours. As the sun slowly disappears westward, the afternoon wind sings us songs. And it’s in these perfect conditions in this perfect place that I’m finally ready to dive into the chicken scratch that has been the random reflections I’ve jotted down over the last few months and turn those words, thoughts, and ideas into something meaningful, even if only for myself—but mostly to chronicle recent epiphanies, to harvest purpose, and to sketch a blueprint for the year (and beyond).
While I’ve been an explorer since I was a child, I’ve fallen deeply in love with the world in the last three years as I’ve collected passport stamps in remote corners the world wide. What I’m beginning to piece together is that each journey I’ve embarked upon has had a deeper purpose, a symbolic underpinning that lived somewhere within my subconscious which guided me to far and distant places to find lessons and realizations I often discover in retrospect. I’ve learned that travel remedies all even if we don’t fully realize those lessons till long after our journeys have ended. We aren’t always ready for the lessons that find us along the way; I believe they present themselves when we are ready.
Three profound journeys in particular had much to teach me, much of which I discovered long after I returned. While every literal and figurative step along each was provocative, deeper lessons came as each journey came to a close and I found myself lost in reflection, trying to make sense of the gritty, beautiful, terrifying, thought-provoking elements of both people and places. The conclusions I’ve come to realize identify themes, symbolism, and common threads that point to the inner workings of the subconscious as we sometimes mindlessly go about our lives. Everything has a purpose, even if it goes unnoticed for a chapter or two.
The Peruvian Amazon | A hesitant dance with Mother Jungle
I journeyed to Peru in the summer of 2015, where I planned two excursions in the depths of the Amazon. I was in mourning, and, on the cognizant surface, was seeking solace, clarity, healing, and peace of mind. The journey was centered around four ayahuasca ceremonies, which would take place at a permaculture farm led by a well-respected shaman and healer named Don Lucho.
To prepare for the cosmic journey alongside Mother Jungle, I spent the first ten days acclimating to the jungle and tracking what an American biologist thought was an unidentified saki monkey species four rivers and four hours by boat from Iquitos. I spent every day in awe of jungle cacophonies, listening to rain showers reverberate through the rainforest, and sipping a nightly 32-ounce Cristal after surviving the day’s adventures. It was rainy season, so we took a hand-carved canoe everywhere we went, cutting paths through dense jungle treetops with a machete. It was in the Amazon that I finally met the boundaries of my comfort zone; many times I imagined my fate was to perish in those jungles. But despite my fears—and a face-to-face encounter with a deadly fer-de-lance—I survived.
Primed and conditioned to the creatures and humidity of the Amazon, onto Kapitari — where the ancient ceremonies would be held — I went. The ayahuasca experience is a story all its own, but what I can tell you is that I was so terrified going into my first ceremony that I almost decided to hide in my tambo for the evening and bypass the very thing that drew me to the jungle in the first place. A person very special to me guided me through my fear that afternoon, and I have her to thank for what became a series of profound epiphanies, some of which took a year to discover. To this day, I’m grateful for this woman. And to this day, the sounds of icaros (traditional medicine songs) and the scent of mapacho (jungle tobacco) will forever be stamped into my soul.
The lesson: When I look back upon the fears that almost held me still — more times than once — I realize that the entire purpose of Peru was to face my fears, to discover and push my boundaries, and to become vulnerable to and trusting of the Universe. Submitting to the Universe in ceremony is one of the most vulnerable things we can do if our soul is ready for the cosmic journey. While my cosmic experience was somewhat hindered by my own psychological resistance, I left the jungle so incredibly proud that I was able to let go, that I was able to let the sacred vine take its course while the shaman guided me into the depths of my being. Looking back, I realize this was only an introduction to plant medicine; I know that I’ll revisit Mother Jungle when I hear her calling. Only this time, I know to trust her from the beginning. More importantly though, I now know to trust myself.
Nepal’s Himalayas | A quest for mountaintops, Jumanji, and enlightenment
Six months later, just after Christmas in 2015, I booked a flight to Nepal on a whim. I was red wine drunk and had tear-soaked cheeks—both of which are commonplace during the holidays—and I’d just read an article about a sustainable elephant camp that had recently opened on the edges of Chitwan National Park. Within twenty minutes of finishing the piece, I had booked a flight for the coming May, which was only five months away. But one cannot go to Nepal without trekking in the Himalayas or exploring the ancient corners of Kathmandu, so I wove all three elements into an itinerary that would crack me open in deep and powerful ways.
The adventure far surpassed any other I’d ever had. The lessons I collected — while hiking 46 miles through Himalayan valleys and along mountaintops (nine miles of which I did with a sprained ankle), surviving a rhino charging us as two giant elephants charged back in the jungle, surviving the season’s first monsoon while camping alongside the Narayani River, and feeling a significant sense of gratitude for the unparalleled kindness and graciousness of all the locals I met, whether in teahouse villages or outside ancient temples in Kathmandu — were enriching on planes that lived deep within, in places I hadn’t yet discovered. I watched two human cremations just outside Pashupatinath along the sacred Bagmati River while monkeys danced around the temple ruins and Hindu holy men called sādhus told me I was on the right path and that my journey was indeed sacred. First, the marigolds went into flames, and then the human bodies burned. I found the ceremonies beautiful.
“Slowly, slowly,” my guide would say as I glanced up at another incline with tears in my eyes along the many miles I’d committed to trek within the tallest mountain range in the world. Before Nepal I’d never hiked more than eight miles in a day, and never ascended more than 2,000 feet. I had the boots and the pack, but absolutely no preparation for what became the hardest thing I’d ever done. Many times I doubted myself, and whether or not I could finish. But, the sense of pride I experienced when I finally summited the overlook in Ghorepani on the third day of the trek was, by far, one of the most profound moments in my life — until two days later when I finally reached the ending checkpoint where I was greeted with fresh fruit and warm smiles from native women in Nayapul.
I still had a stint in the jungle to survive, where we were charged by the aforementioned rhino as the elephants behind us trumpeted and nearly trampled us. The elephants were there to guard us against the creatures of the jungle. And guard us they did—from the rhinos who fought downriver from our campsite and from the tiger my tentmate and I heard growl in the middle of the night once the relentless storm finally dissolved under the moon.
The lesson: I emerged from the mountains, the jungle, and the ancient city of Kathmandu with countless freckles, barely able to walk. I was scathed by the elements and cracked wide open by countless things: the leeches who maneuvered themselves into my boots and attached themselves to my feet, which bled uncontrollably for hours on my first day in the mountains; the kindness of villagers who shared their fires, trekking sticks, and homemade wine with me; the porter who carried the burden of my belongings along with his own for almost fifty Himalayan miles; the mules who carted supplies high into the mountains where only foot- and hoof-traffic could reach; by the giant elephants who kept us safe as we hiked through the jungle. In reflection, I realized my own strength and my endurance. I realized that I can do anything.
Portugal | An uncharted journey in search of independence and the unknown
In the spring of 2017 I spent a month between southern Spain and coastal Portugal, using only my curiosity as a compass. Also booked on a whim (a common theme among my travels), this was the first journey in which I had no solid plan. I had a backpack, unusually little money, a one-way flight into Seville, and a one-way back to the States from Porto one month later. (Porto was also chosen on a whim, as an ode to a Brazilian best friend’s middle name.) The otherwise directionless possibilities left room for magic to unfold organically. And it did.
There are a handful of micro-stories that stem from last March and April. More than anything, the wanderings I pieced together as I went provided a sense of discovery, most often in the form of uninterrupted natural beauty being the offseason, in bowls of dirt cheap clams, in driving a car for the very first time in a foreign country, in a street musician turned friend, in fairytale palaces and whitewashed villages and hiking down steep coastal cliffs to Europe’s southwesternmost point while an ocean storm battered us.
The unknown kept me on my toes. And the lack of framework allowed me to follow the unknown to the literal edges of the continent and beyond. By the end of that month, my shoulders were bruised from my backpack. And I reckon I acquired a few new crow’s feet too. The most impactful journeys weather us, after all—just like they should.
The lesson: The lessons found in Portugal combined those that were discovered by way of Peru and Nepal, while also offering a powerful realization—I am enough, and I can do anything on my own—something that’ll forever be woven into everything I do. For this reason, Portugal, especially, will remain one of the most significant months of my life.
A rich year, indeed | Piecing it all together
It’s now the last day of the workshop, and the tide is low again. A mound of sand has found its way into my sheets and I haven’t washed my hair in days. We’ve spent the morning reflecting on object impermanence and, as Patti Smith calls it in M Train, “the Valley of Lost Things”—recalling things we’ve lost and found throughout our lives that are ingrained in our narratives—lost things we may mourn, lost things whose location we incessantly ponder, and things that have found their way into our lives by chance.
That old pink garter belt. The old Coleman lantern. The giant sugar pinecones. The handwritten letter inviting a woman named Ashley to a ball. All things that once took up residence on my shelves, but now, as a perpetual wanderer, live in boxes.
As the village women come and go along the sandy paths below us, we break into a free-writing exercise exploring the things we’ve lost and found. One of the workshop hosts comes by and asks if I’m going to write a story I shared in our circle earlier. The woman from Uganda chimes in with a grin.
“Your stories sound like a movie. As if nobody could believe you…like that you broke into a house?”
“This very intelligent woman came in and stole my painting. She sat with me and drugged me with her stories,” the second workshop host says, smiling, partly fictionalizing my tale.
The story they speak of was of an average Sunday while still living in Austin. To me, it was ordinary. But then I realize, further identifying my voice and mining for the stories I already have is the entire purpose of this across-the-world jaunt. Like the realizations that followed Peru, Nepal, and Portugal, I’ve discovered the purpose of my being in Zanzibar, only I made that discovery while still here. And, after all these borders and passport stamps and aimless wanderings, it feels like a powerful symbol of growth. I’m here to open the time capsules, dust off the things I’ve yet to put to paper, and to enter a new chapter of ongoing creation.
So I began to reflect on all the things that have happened in the last year. There was the Andorra border crossing in which I’d forgotten my passport and was only allowed to cross when I expressed my dislike of our current administration. There was the whirlwind trip to Israel, exploring Einstein’s archives alongside the Einstein Legacy Foundation, inspiring me beyond belief and putting into perspective the Theory of Relativity and how it relates to time passing increasingly fast as we grow older. There were the Portuguese sunsets, starlit petiscos, and medronho enjoyed in an old-school, illegal taberna with old local men. There were the razor clams at a Portuguese “horseshoe” bar that I could not stomach. There were the photography workshops I took—one on the northern Portuguese coast and another, months later, in the meandering alleyways of Barcelona. There was also the sailing trip I took on the Mediterranean where we drank rosé, listened to reggae, fished for tuna, and had paella made onboard by a chef.
There was the handsome man with a dark aura and Little Prince tattoos that I met in Seville, with whom I shared a cinematic evening over tapas and abandoned houses owned by “gypsies” and a spit-promise handshake next to a moonlit fountain. He had lured me in with pancakes, and even though he asked me to stay, I knew I’d never speak to him again, waving goodbye as I took a taxi to catch my next train.
As said Lisa St. Aubin de Terán said, “Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.’”
There was the taxicab driver I met in London who says our brief encounter changed his life and inspired him beyond belief. There were my first glimpses of the French Pyrénées, punctuated by a double rainbow painted across the otherwise grey skies. There was the discovery of Puerta de la Selva—a fishing village along Spain’s Costa Brava where I spent hours watching the fishermen bring in their catches of the day, weigh them, and immediately auction them off to local residents and chefs. And just outside of town was a patch of Mediterranean coastline that I got to call my own for half a day. There were the husband-and-wife, photographer-duo hitchhikers I picked up in southern France and drove across the Spanish border who offered an invitation to Toulouse without expiration, along with a brief lesson in star photography and shooting the night sky.
There was the white cat with one blue and one green eye who peered back at me as I tried to drive a car that was far too big through the winding streets of Aljezur. There was the soft cheese and honey (whose name I cannot remember) along the Spanish coast that I’ll never forget. There was the photographer and author, whose work I greatly admire, who showed me Lisbon—its best pastries, its graffiti-painting grannies, its miradors, and, even, an illegal Chinese restaurant that served the best Chinese food I’ve ever had. There was one sunset and sunrise in Geneva after I had far too much fondue and not near enough fine French wine. There were the two short days in Edinburgh where the silhouettes of old castle ruins and long-dead wildflowers produced one of the most magical sunsets of the entire year. There was the fish stew and inconvenient rain in Tavira. There was the ballgame I played with grandads on the beach in Tel Aviv—the same beach where I watched Middle Eastern children build a sandcastle and found myself crying, realizing that Aleppo was only 400-something miles away and that these same tiny, innocent children could be bombed at any given moment, their sandcastles crumbling beside them. I cried imagining the Syrian lives lost to those very waters as they sought refuge and asylum.
There was the Women’s March on Washington where we marched proudly with our “Be fucking decent!” signs. There were a few collective months in the Blue Ridges, where I fell in love with pickin’ sessions, moonshine, and even learned to love a few Republicans. There was a detour through N’awlins where I stocked up on potions and gumbo, and took a washboard lesson with a man who called himself “Windex Pete.” There were the jaunts to the Tetons and Rockies. There was the wildest sunrise rainshower I’ve ever seen in my life in Arches National Park, producing what looked like diamonds falling from the sky after I’d spent the night sleeping in my car in the parking lot of a small-town laundromat. There was the day I fell in love with White Sands after having a lovely reunion with an old busker I’d befriended in Santa Fe. Soon after, there were some rowdy nights and yellowed aspens and whiskey in Carbondale. There were the days aside Carter Mountain under the northern Wyoming stars with one of my best friends in the world, sipping “stick” wine from a mason jar and shooting the stars. There was the roadtrip to the top of Chief Joseph Pass where my childhood best friend and I fed wild chipmunks from our hands before venturing into Yellowstone. Later, we spotted our first grizzly while en route to Jackson and Driggs. There was also the cactus I sat on next to the Shoshone River, where she hand-picked needles out of my bare ass for an hour.
There was live music. (Like the night spent backstage in D.C. with The Brothers Comatose where we all sang together as they practiced their encore of “Don’t Let Me Down,” which was one of the musical highlights of the year.) There were hangovers. There were tarnished relationships. And new ones too. There was intimacy that was never meant to last, but taught me so much about who I am as a woman and what it is I’m seeking in this life. There were bylines I never imagined I’d land. There were freckles and bruises and tears and a little bit of lost eyesight, along with laughter, sun salutations and, finally, headstands. All of this, and so much more, in one short year. Imagine if every year could be so enriching. (I believe every year can be.)
It all led to now | An ode and a promise (to myself)
Having been raised by my grandfather and having an unconventional family, I’ve always struggled with a sense of belonging. When grandad died, the essence of home died too. Since, I’ve no longer felt the good fortune of being able to say “I need to go home” when I’ve been broken-hearted, when I’ve had enough. I no longer have the basement with the workbenches and grey, concrete floor grandad and I painted together to tuck away the fragments of years past, or a front door to walk through where he would greet me with enthusiasm and a blue and white dish towel over his shoulder, or that old butterscotch corduroy sofa to curl up on when my heart and soul hurt, when life becomes too much.
Since he died, the notion of “home” has been on the open road and out in the world, with the people I’ve met along the way, with the people I fell in love with in Austin—which I left more than a year ago to pursue these dreams of mine. These dreams have taken me all over the world, and I can finally say I achieved my quest for geographic independence, which, looking back, was the biggest dream I’ve ever had.
But I felt compelled to return to Austin for the holidays, and the time I had with the folks who’ve become hand-curated soulmates and family was deeply impactful, reminding me that I do, in fact, have a home in the city I moved to without knowing a soul. For years I carried a hefty guilt for leaving when grandad was sick; for years I blamed myself for his condition and his death. Today, though, I realize, I was meant to find Austin; I was meant to find an authentic and unwavering sense of family and belonging. I was meant to know the Baffis, to discover their magic, to love them—to share their clam and crab sauce, their holiday tradition of watching Hook and My Cousin Vinny, their love of music, and their mutual love of “magic.” I was meant to play bocce ball with them as the sun sets over Volente Beach. And to shoot fine tequila with them as the moon rises. I was meant to take handfuls of goji berries and ibuprofen with them as we awake with inevitable Christmas hangovers. I was meant to cuddle up next to a warm soul in a floor-length fur coat around the campfire while cheersing to traditional Norwegian toasts. I was meant to travel the world with Gigi.
It snowed on New Year’s Eve, which is a rarity in Austin. It came out of nowhere as I sipped on a hot toddy, clad in leather house slippers and a colorful sequin cape. I was leaving the next morning to head east, but for the night I was with the Wilsons—a couple who’ve inspired me beyond measure since I first met them years ago. I met them via Elizabeth, a dear hometown friend who first introduced me to the idea of travel writing and living a life true to our nomad souls. Elizabeth had her wedding at a ranch the Wilsons owned along a country road I had deemed the “Driftwood Circle,” which I drove nightly with my dog Timber to chase the sunset when I first moved to Texas. Together, Elizabeth and the Wilsons represent the domino effect of purpose in life, with things falling into place because they were, without question, supposed to find themselves in those places.
It was Melissa who talked me off my ledge and into the arms of Mother Jungle as I sat crying in my tambo in Peru. And Mike is the one who told me I could live my dreams when I hesitated to migrate from the certainty and pigeonholing of salary to the uncertainty and freedom of working for myself. Because they are the Wilsons, I listened intently to both of them, and my path has been illuminated and become more colorful as a result. As a union and wise conduits of the Universe, the Wilsons live life italicized, their words elixirs and their existence a blessing. “Wilson” is a verb, a way of life. Like the Baffis and like Elizabeth, I know I was meant to meet them.
As the clock struck midnight and I rang in the New Year with folks who’ve perhaps unknowingly been my captains and guiding lights, I reflected on the holiday and the magic of the moment. I was exactly where I was supposed to be with people I was destined to know.
On my last night in Zanzibar I returned to the shores of the Indian Ocean for one last sunset. I’d now written a collective 10,000 words, many of which surfaced stories I’d long buried and hadn’t pondered in years. As one woman said in our final session, we were “marching with our words.” With me, I took the cobwebs that have anchored me over time and gave them a Viking funeral—becoming silhouetted against a cotton candy sky. My dreams met the horizon while the sand exfoliated my soul. A tear or two later, I returned to our treetop bungalow for octopus curry and, afterward, chatter next to a fire, where we looked up at the constellations and reflected on the beauty of being “split between.”
Just three weeks into the New Year, I’ve never felt more ready for life, more inspired by those I’ve met along the way, or more prepared to take all I know and, finally, run with it. This year, I’ll take the difficult lessons I found deep in the jungles and high in the mountains (and everywhere in between) and blend them into a watercolor gradient that’ll serve as a portrait of my journey.
All roads have led me here, to today, to the people I’ve fallen in love with, to the people I’ve yet to love. Here on this island, all those lessons I’ve tucked away in the pockets of my rucksack over the years have finally come together. And it’s all, finally, beginning to make sense.
