my brother says...

...that my blog is getting a bit stale. And I suppose I can’t help but agree with him. I must have gotten lost somewhere between the “I’m dealing with so much intensity and don’t know how I can possibly document it!” excuse and the “Internet in this country is a useless mess and I actually just can’t be bothered” pathetic apology. But here I am - four months, three countries, endless hours of digging in the dirt, and countless couches later - attempting to return to a space of reflection and processing and sharing. But as much as I may laugh at myself for trying to hide behind a façade of too many Intense Travel Experiences to actually be able to write anything that does them a sliver of justice, there’s really no way to do it. I’ve been gone a long time. So, with a gracious nod to Marcus tweaked by some clumsy poetic license, here’s where I've been:

I could have written about a tearful last night in Cape Town, during which I intensely evoked Joni Mitchell and her Big Yellow Taxi.

I could have written about a country that lives behind cement walls and barbed wire. And about some delicate mixture of actual and imagined crime – violent and essentially harmless, sexual and gender based, money driven and drug influenced – that has seeped into the national consciousness enough to drape the country in a layer of fear, in all its various incarnations.

I could have written about sending two people to walk a third person home at night, about waiting outside when dropping someone off until they get in all the many gates outside of every house, about taking off jewelry and putting cell phones on silent in certain taxis that go to certain areas, or about locking the burglar bars outside of windows. (Or about the existence of “burglar bars” in the first place.)

I could have written about Friday afternoons making me homesick, and about being surprised by who I found myself homesick for.

I could have written about learning that it’s possible to love again.

I could have awkwardly attempted to write about ubuntu and “Pink Ubuntu” and brilliant lesbian activists who say, “Once you attach a color to ubuntu, it’s not ubuntu anymore.” And I could have written about the complexities of a “Pink City” whose alleyways reek of homophobia. I could have written about celebration and protests and singing and resisting and defeat and returning again and again.

I could have written about thorny understandings of queerness.

I could have written about queues that last for days and Minister’s Exemptions for Zimbabwean nationals and the Department of Home Affairs and an immigration system that just might be more broken than that of the U.S.

In a fit of frustration around a dangerously ripe visa and an absence of Mosaic-esque communities in my world at that moment, I could have written about my need for movement. I could have written about skipping town to Namibia for visa-related purposes and making a decision to leave Cape Town and wander through other parts of South Africa upon my return. And I could have written about the ways that “The Movement” and physical motion are oh so intimately connected for me.

I could have written about communities that opened up their arms and hugged me, both literally and metaphorically, without ever being asked. I also could have written about loneliness.

I could have written about my assertion that humans are not made to forge new versions of lives for ourselves every few days or weeks or months. I would have written this after forgetting how difficult and energy draining it is to do it over and over again, and getting up and running off to explore one too many times.

I could have written in May about feeling finished with something that wasn’t going to end until September.

I could have written about emotional exhaustion and cerebral saturation.

I could have written about craving comfort in the form of someone who knows me and how I function. Just for a little while at least, and then I would have gone back to writing about doing the whole this-is-for-me-to-do-alone-and-it’s-what-I-need-to-be-doing thing again.

I could have written about playing in the dirt, and how good and soothing it is for my soul.

I could have written about homemade bread for breakfast and fresh veggies for dinner and feeding chickens and sheep and cows every afternoon at four o’clock.

I could have written about meditative, lightbulb moments I had while weeding, and about all the garden psychology metaphors sprouting in my brain. I could have written about how weeds can indicate nutrient deficiencies in soil, and how some weeds are harder to pull out than others, and how weeds are useful greenery to add to compost heaps, and how certain weeds generally grow with certain plants, and how all of it is really about the human psyche and I actually just need Amani to help me develop the metaphors.

I could have written about riding a bicycle across a mural in a strange old English bar in a rural Eastern Cape farm town. And teaching old Afrikaners the Macarena.

I could have written about a constant search for peach gummies.

I could have written about the Wild Coast, and how beyond beautiful it is, even to a spoiled California girl like myself. I could have written about how much I need ocean in my life.

I could have written about dreams of veggie gardens and libraries in beautiful, intentional communities, and then I could have written about disillusionment.

I could have written about sharing conflict resolution – Mosaic-style – with an outdoor education center in a real-life fairyland, and then watching it be taught through the use of painfully homophobic skits. I could have written about choosing my battles.

I could have written about the treks across the Eastern Cape made by my beloved St. Paul acquired brown scruffy sneakers -- tekkies as South Africans so affectionately call them. And I could have written about how pitiful I must have looked when I left them in my Cape Town closet for my housemate to inherit, if she wants. And I could have written about how I’m getting better at letting go of strangely emotional items of clothing. I could have written about forgetting.

I could have written about a mountain I never climbed, a bathhouse I never went to, and a restaurant I never ate at.

I could have written about infatuation with American-ness, and about disdain for American-ness. And about people who want to be stuffed in suitcases for largely unrelated reasons. Maybe because they love me.

I could have written about dropping roots gently, leaving, and coming back to find them stronger.

I could have written about a city that – as much as I tried to fight it – managed to find its way into my bloodstream.

I could have written about figuring out how to own decisions that weren’t mine to begin with but have no choice but to be mine now.

I could have written about a closure that was so much bigger than the process of opening would have ever indicated.

I could have written about Purple Converse All Stars.

I could have written about transitions and in-between-ness and need for purpose. I could have written about containers, and about not having one, and about being okay with that, and about creating one, and about not having one all over again.

I could have written about planes and trains and buses times a million.

I could have written about sisters of dear friends who go out of their way to feed and house and love me. And I could have written about complete strangers who do exactly the same.

I could have written about never leaving home without a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth. Thank you, Norton Juster, for your infinite wisdom. And thank you, Maddie Hogan, for a little card you sent me just before I left for Israel six years ago that brought Milo and his cardboard tollbooth full circle.