white girl problems: part 1

the transition back to life in Costa Rica hasn’t felt as smooth this time around. not least because i left my heart in San Diego. 

but also because i left a lot of other parts of me there, too. it turns out i’m discovering this whole slew of identity crises coming at me all at once in this interim phase between being there and being here. the no-man’s-land of transitioning from one reality into another where you don’t feel grounded in either because you don’t quite know who to be or how to be in one or the other. unsettled. incomplete. 

yep, white girl problems. this time, of the lizard-like variety.

see what i mean? it doesn’t make any sense.

i got back on a Monday after nearly four months away, working as a writer, living as a lover, and settling into SoCal sunshine. without my noticing, it had grown comfortable, being there. my heart barely reacted to the once anxiety-ridden commutes down the 5 in morning traffic; now i’d be eating my breakfast banana, curling my eyelashes and talking on the flip-phone on speaker in my cleavage, switching lanes like no big deal. i’d stopped missing bugs. i’d remember to bring a sweater to work and take sunny phone-call breaks instead of freezing my skin off in the office’s centrally controlled air conditioning 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. i’d suit up in 4 millimeters of neoprene and paddle out into 2-foot slop with a smile on my face instead of grimacing at the frigid, swell-less thought and going back to sleep. i’d stopped writing poems about the sensationalized fear-driven news programming i had no choice but to watch from the treadmill; now i’d just try to keep up with the closed captioning as my eyes bounced in rhythm with my worn-out sneakers, forgetting to judge all the things i hated about living in the USA. i’d gained 5 pounds of consumer culture on my hips and thighs. and i didn’t really care. i was my gringa self in all of her glory. and i kinda liked her. other people seemed to like her, too.  

“he’s like a chameleon.” years ago, i overheard a friend criticize someone he knew for a unique character flaw. “it’s like he changes his personal identity depending on the company he’s with or the scenario he’s in.” hmmm, i thought. that sounded familiar. but i didn’t think it was such a bad thing. i actually thought it was admirable, perhaps the embodiment of an evolved, ego-less being, who makes himself at home in any given situation by adapting to the circumstances. an acceptance of the subjective interrelationship between self and society. that image of the chameleon has stayed with me as i go about my wanderings, adjusting to my realities as my environment dictates. so far, it’s been easy-breezy and excitingly unpredictable. my colors often felt beautiful.     

the guitar orchestra of the University of Costa Rica serenaded us in the crowded aisle of the Jet Blue sky just before landing in San Jose. my mom waited for me longer than usual outside the airport as i fumbled to fabricate a return-ticket i hadn’t booked to satisfy Costa Rica’s now apparently well-enforced entry requirements. my foreign-feeling Spanish was unconvincing; luckily, my phony travel documents and grumpy gringa demeanor passed the test. mom and i drove home like chatty girlfriends, no beats skipped. i hugged my dad and kissed our AmaTierra family hello, catching up on life and death. i unpacked and re-packed and gave myself a pedicure and wrote in my diary and crawled into bed. i couldn’t wait to sleep. i was happy to be home. other people seemed happy, too.

but rainy season smelled uncomfortably damp on my pillow. and i didn’t quite accept the tiny spiders and their flimsy webs behind my bed frame. the cicadas wouldn’t shut the fuck up. i sort of missed the borrowed air mattress on the floor in someone else’s spare bedroom. and i really missed the man who slept on it with me.

on a Tuesday, i slipped back into life as it was as if i’d never left. making up for lost time and fulfilling work obligations i’d been sidelining by taking the job in San Diego. now i had to show i was committed to being a part of the UPEACE campus community, finding myself nearly on board with embracing my fate as full-time doctoral student, making myself worthy of the extravagant $700 a month stipend they were paying me to stay on top of deadlines and exist within reach. i read and wrote and met with smart, experienced academics who gave me tips and told me my project was too ambitious and used big words like epistemology, which from now on i will commit to memory and try to use in a sentence like ‘duh, of course i know what epistemology means, and omg aren’t you an idiot because you don’t.’ i was working on becoming my intellectual smarty-pants student self again.

on the weekend, i flailed around in head-high waves i hadn’t seen in months, wobbly on a board i had left behind, hoping my shiny new locally-shaped custom thruster would be awaiting my return. it wasn’t. i dutifully showed up late, post-surf, to the Pura Vida No-Pro, an annual volunteer beach day event for orphan kids, trying to make myself useful and force small talk among the sea of like-minded acquaintances brimming with charity, the three-to-one volunteer-to-orphan ratio slightly uncomfortable for all of us. my social anxiety felt impossible to bear, so instead of getting day-drunk and shining it on for another few hours, i slipped out and took off. i couldn’t fake another smile.

i went back to work on Monday, sitting at my desk making to-do lists and wasting time on facebook for a week. the roosters’ 5am daily alarm-clock cluck-fest was not cute; sleepless on the other side of the window, i plotted their cock-a-doodle-demise in some form of stew. somehow, i eked out a final draft of my dissertation proposal, pretending i cared which methodology made the most sense for my research project i wasn’t convinced i even wanted to do. skype-ing with my new long-distance non-boyfriend brought temporary relief, followed by bursts of reality that we live in separate countries for the more-than-foreseeable future.

and now it was Thanksgiving, and it was lovely and i played daughter to my parents and girlfriend to my soul-sisters who i love but who i didn’t feel quite at home with just yet.

it wasn’t them.

it was me.

and that was really fucking annoying. why can’t i just jump back in like i’ve always done? change my chameleon skin to adapt to the colors of my new and familiar surroundings? why was i missing a place i had been ready to leave and people i had only just begun to know? why didn’t i feel at home at home? alone time in a cave for a month wouldn’t even be enough to get my shit sorted. because how do you feel whole when parts of you aren’t where they should be? when certain layers aren’t flaking off as fast as you want them to, and new-old skins aren’t regenerating like they used to.

on Friday morning, i went to my new transpersonal psychologist for a free intro session. i whined about my white girl problems for a long half-hour. she put them into perspective in a simple instant: “you can be everything everyone wants you to be. or you can be you. it’s like that saying, ‘everyone loves you, except for you’. her message resonated with my creeping sense of new-found obligation that didn’t sit well with my ‘live your soul purpose by living the life you want’ philosophy. she asked me what i thought i needed to live my ideal life in this moment. i cried when i told her i just needed space to be me. that sounded easy enough.

but that wasn’t the whole problem. i didn’t just need alone time to process and quit my gringa reality in exchange for the person i am in my Costa Rican environment. that felt like a denial of parts of myself i actually liked and came to identify with. but i wasn’t sure if those parts were actually parts of me or just colors i wore to adapt to the cultural circumstances around me. and which of the good parts of my Costa Rica self had i denied in the process of accommodating my USA reality? how much of my gringa self was actually me? how much of my Costa Rica self?

unsure who to be in the space i thought i needed to be me again, alone time started to look like more of the problem than a strategy toward a solution.   

because how does the chameleon know what color to be when he’s all by himself?

…reptilian angst my existential crisis. 

dumped: a free-love story (the end)

1. moments misinterpreted

‘my bed smells like you,’ i texted you a week ago, our blissful weekend together still warm in my memory.

“is that good or bad?” you responded, a little joke to keep it light, always.

my winking smiley face emoticon said it all.

*****

“we’re in this undefined relationship,” you confessed unabashedly to my friend you just met, hopped-up on Red Bull and tipsy from the night. “but she’s leaving soon. it’s sad, isn’t it?” you held my knee for moral support and laughed. i smiled, a little embarrassed at the volume of your voice, but reassured that i wasn’t alone in feeling. my heart was all like ‘awww.’

“i’m really gonna miss you,” you had told me earlier that afternoon between bites of Bull Taco breakfast burrito.

“i know, i’m gonna miss you, too,” i said. we had been spending hours and days and nights together for weeks now, soaking it all up. “we don’t have to think about it yet. we still have some time.” 

we had two weeks. 

we ate our chips and guac in a few long moments of uncharacteristic silence before changing the subject and going to Best Buy.

“i really like you,” you said later that night, transparent eyes centimeters from mine. “what’s gonna happen when you leave?”

i wasn’t expecting that question. we’d done well to be living in our moments, enjoying each other’s presence, not getting attached. i had been taking cues from you, this whole modern-dating-USA thing new to me, foreign feeling. if we were in Costa Rica, we’d be living together with a dog by now. not so in the real world where people take things slow, i learned.   

“let’s just have fun and not try and make this something it’s not,” you had said six weeks ago.

sure, i thought. that’s safe enough for me, too.

i listened as you listed your priorities, your rationale for not getting emotionally involved – family, surfing, friends, work, and then everything else, including dating. you didn’t want to have to text someone every day. i lied and said that was fine with me. i wasn’t looking for anything serious with you either. how could i be? i was leaving soon, anyway; gone before you know it, another friend to stay in touch with on facebook. because that’s what this is, right? friends. anything else would just be too inconvenient.

so apparently it wasn’t the right moment to tell you i was in love with you. and it wasn’t the right moment to tell you that i felt it in the parking lot when you hugged me goodbye after you took me to surf at Blacks. it wasn’t the right moment to tell you that i felt it when you kissed me on the cliffs in the new moon after i allowed myself to be atypically vulnerable to you at the Padres game we weren’t watching, the hours drifting by as you talked about relationships of power and systems of oppression, name-dropping Foucault as my jaw dropped in awe, our parallel universe where time stood still as we sat surrounded by people who don’t get it.

it wasn’t the right moment to tell you that i felt it every time you reached for my hand or kissed me goodbye, walking to your truck after sleeping and not sleeping on borrowed air mattresses in other people’s spare bedrooms. it wasn’t the right time to tell you that i felt you feel it, too. when you took me to the airport and said you’ll be missing me. and kissed me goodbye like you meant it. when you were nervous showing me where you grew up, driving fast up the mountain to impress an adrenaline junkie like me. it wasn’t the right moment to tell you i felt that, too.

“what do you want to happen when i leave?” i asked, handing back the baton, trading heavy for light again.

you said you didn’t know. that you felt conflicted now and that this is what you were trying to prevent when we had our ‘let’s keep it simple’ conversation a few weeks back.

“we can skype…” i offered, knowing we probably wouldn’t. you started snoring on my chest as i stared up at the ceiling, wishing it wouldn’t hurt.

*******

two days later, i cooked you dinner for your birthday. we talked about your priorities again.

“but you’re my friend, and you surf, so…” now you seemed unsure where i fit in your comfortable scheme of things. i was grateful you had given me some time, for all that we shared and how special it felt to know you; honored that you had been texting me every day because you wanted to, not because you felt like you had to.

'you’re a breath of fresh air,' i told you once. you’d say things i’ve thought in my mind forever that i’d never expressed to another living soul. you spoke my language. i sometimes wondered if i created you, a figment of my imagination gifting me with your perfect blue-eyed presence in all its dark, human imperfection. childlike, we told bedtime stories and invented sing-a-longs we’d be embarrassed to share in other company. 

you’d let me in for a second, feeling safe. you’d close up again, insecure. i liked that. i felt like myself in all of my dimensions and wanted to share them with you in exchange for yours. i wanted to explore. it felt warm. and comfortable. and real.

your sense of humor felt like home. your intellect appealed to my sexuality. my heart went along for the ride.

your birthday texts started just after midnight, your ex-girlfriend among the first to wish you well. you didn’t want to talk about her. i didn’t let it go. i told you i valued honesty and openness in relationships and that i just wanted to understand.

“relationship? you’re leaving in ten days.” you turned toward the edge of the air mattress, away from me. i kissed the back of your neck in vain.

i wrapped my leg around you, trying to climb over the wall you built in that insurmountable instant.

“i like your legs,” you said. “they’re my favorite.” i let it go, probably a second after it was already too late.

i wrote you a birthday haiku you hated kindly. you kissed me goodbye and left for work. i wiped away a few tears you’d never see. that was Wednesday morning.

******

it’s Friday now, my morning headache predictable, escape by wine my Halloween poison of choice. i thought it would help me forget you hadn’t called, and probably wouldn’t.

my bed smells like you. unsure whether that was good or bad now, i rolled over, squinting into the uninvited sunlight at the window.

an hour later, i peeled myself off the air mattress, stripped the bed and washed the sheets, my hands, my heart, of you.

******

i never found the right time to tell you.

so i guess you'll never know.

i love you.

…you had me at Foucault. 

******

so this is what free love feels like. maybe in my version of it, anyway. sometimes it feels a lot more like free pain, if you ask me. but at least it's real. and honest. and maybe that's the point of this top 5 list after all. when i started writing it, i wasn't sure it even had a point (vulnerabilities exposed, frozen in time - for what?). but now that we've reached the end, it seems the openness in sharing, the rawness in authenticity, the subjective truth in real-life story, are what resonate most. when you can feel your heart through my heart. my words in the infinite abyss of cyberland finding a home in you and your story.  

the funny part about this last one, though, is that i still cry when i read it. even when i know it isn't true. even when i know he actually didn't dump me. and the four days i didn't hear from him were a mercury-retrograde mix-up of missed texts and moments misinterpreted. even when i know i created that story in my head and it isn't even real, it still makes me cry when i read it. how can it be that i got so attached to the idea and the feeling of being dumped, that even after being un-dumped and really and truly loved instead, that the story i feel is the one that isn't real?

we ascribe meaning to our experiences, to the cycles of connection, vulnerability, love, pain, letting go, healing, learning, re-creating and starting anew. our stories give life to those feelings, the lingering memories fingerprints in our hearts, minds, shaping where we go and who we let in and why. we share our truths and we feel our pain and others recognize it and feel it, too. because that's what this humanness is all about: being, feeling, sharing, healing.

falling in free-love, getting dumped in free-pain. we can feel that, so we know it's real.

right?

or maybe, in the end, they're all just stories in our head. 

dumped: a free-love story (part 3)

now no cheating. so if you're just checking in now, you have to go back two posts and read from the beginning! 

3. sooner than later

it was a schoolgirl crush-come-true as i held you tight from behind, our helmets in close conversation, my hair tangling long in the fast wind around the curves. six years of waiting in the wings of our more-than-friendship while your serial girlfriends took center stage, it was finally my turn.

you picked up the pieces from my freshly broken nose; i wove the stitches in your heart on the mend. you laughed at the hospital when i tried to will my crooked bones straight; i cried on the picnic blanket when i felt your tired soul still raw in your chest. 

our bodies liked eachother. a lot. our minds and hearts did, too. they still would, i think. if we had let them. maybe if i wanted what you wanted - a beautiful life, the security of stability, comfort in New England – we’d be each other’s dream come true. i still wanted to feel it though, even when i knew it would end. it was perfect in impossibility. 

“thank you for all the love,” you said when i left.

you went home to your family in winter, settling in. i shopped plastic surgeons in the tropics, surfing instead.

i visited you once there, too. 

the fire in us made the snow feel warm when my toes went numb in your white wonderland. i met your friends; the quirky bookstore, the local coffee shop where everybody knew your name. your mom made us dinner with the turmeric i had brought as a gift; your dad was impressed by our conversation, your arm around my shoulder. you liked how i felt there with you.

my suitcase slept in your brother’s empty room.

“come see me again soon,” you said as i left, our twenty-four hours of wintry bliss winding down to seconds at the station. i was eager to feel like this with you again.

when I got home, i booked a flight.

a few days later, you changed your mind.

i knew it would end sooner or later, but when you chose sooner, i had still been betting on later.

sad in understanding, i wandered Boston alone.

*******

2. but what about the moonlight?

your face was my vision in the sweat lodge on the full moon. dark skin, wide nose, thick lips, long dreds braided down your back. of course it was a sign of cosmic validation when i saw your missed calls, text messages asking me where i was. it was probably the exact same moment you were on my mind as i dripped hot sweat into the cool, prickly earth. we’re that connected. i was ready for us to be together. you felt ready to me, too.

i made you soup when you were sick. and ginger tea with lemon and honey. you came over for dinner like every night for a week. we watched bad movies and i rubbed your back on the couch. i really liked your skin on my skin. and we’d make a beautiful baby someday. we still might, actually.

i was excited to tell you how i felt.

but you folded first; my cards forever hidden in my hand. 

“i don’t want to hurt you,” you said, pushing tofu to the side of your plate of mystery vegetables soaked in low-sodium soy.

i was confused. i thought things were going well, like we’d finally made that transition from soul-friends-with-benefits to soul-mates forever and ever. it would be nice if our future rasta baby had parents who loved each other and lived happily ever after. i liked how that story went.

“i could never fall in love with you,” you said.

i smiled. i almost laughed. i wanted to cry.

“why’s that?” i asked, intrigued more than anything.

i thought you’d say something along the lines of “i like you better as a friend.” or “i only believe in true love, One Love Jah Bless.” that would have made sense.

instead, you said, in the simplicity of all seriousness:

“we eat different food. you hate TV. and you don’t like air conditioning.” you wanted carne en salsa, flat screens, surround sound and subzero in the bedroom.

this time i actually laughed.

then i cried. in the pool. by myself. just me and the moonlight.

i hoped you’d be gone by the time i went back inside. instead, you were on my couch skype-ing your internet girlfriend you had known for like a week.

by then, i was all out of tears. i really, really, really, really wanted you to leave.

unimpressed by my passive, cold shoulder silent treatment, you said to me: “you still have a long ways to go, Tara.” you meant spiritually.

i meant get the fuck out. like now.

dumped: a free-love story (continued)

4. day zero

i met you on my birthday at the Malcom X drum circle, beckoning you in my divine visualization across the sea of dancers, my yellow jeans fancy-free in Sunday afternoon.

“i’m Tara,” i said.

“of course you are,” you replied, tiger eyes glowing in intrigue. “Tara, goddess, you are devi,” you said to me, “dancing us all into the light.” i melted into your spiritual poetry.

10 minutes later, we had known each other for millennia. 

you were the most unique circus of a person i had ever met – yoga, surf, capoeira, thai massage, stunt acting, intellectual, entrepreneur, urban, suburban, travelled, spiritual, cultured, interesting; interested. 15 years my senior, your experience and passion a lesson in every conversation, i mostly listened.

you liked my touch, the chemistry in our spirits.

we braved DC’s version of the hurricane for breakfast, present in each other’s gaze as the wind howled. oblivious to those around us, hours passed in seconds. later, we sought shelter from the storm in warm embrace. mesmerized, i was into you, but something in me wasn’t. i couldn’t put my finger on it, but i was invested to find out.

it was a weeklong romance ripe with possibility, the two of us nomads by destiny, content to float like feathers in the wind.

“come to Mexico with me for Mayan 2012,” you said before I left. i had been planning to go anyway, of course. we started planning the trip, and then your visit to Costa Rica, and then our travels to Bali.

“i keep looking at travel magazines,” you told me. “and all i think about is where would Tara like to go?” i would have gone anywhere.

weeks passed and i still hadn’t booked my flight. you had passport issues postponing your trip. i broke my nose in Colombia and spent the solstice at home. you went, and we lost touch.

nearing the first of the year, i finally heard from you.

“i met my mate on Day Zero,” you wrote me, letting me down graciously, grateful to me for opening your heart to the possibility of soul-level connections you had written off in years past. 

i smiled when i read your words, happy for you. and not that sad for me, really. i now understood my inexplicable hesitance when we were together: you were a beautiful fantasy of my own design; a ghost, fleeting by nature, impossible to hold. 

my soul content in knowing you again, my heart didn’t resist letting you go.

dumped: a free-love story

when i tell people i’ve been dumped six times this year, the reactions are diverse - ranging from sorrow (oh no, sweetie, are you okay?) and scorn (nobody dumps YOU, what’s wrong with these guys? they must be total losers!) to shame (well, what are you doing wrong?) and sisterly support (at least you’re putting yourself out there, girl!). strangely, i can’t relate to any of these sentiments, and instead i almost celebrate the many times i’ve been dumped as a constant practice of love-and-let-go; validation of the free love philosophy i have been cultivating in recent years. i’ve found the lessons revealing, the love meaningful and fulfilling, the loss oftentimes heartbreakingly real. but instead of closing my heart up more and more with each successive ending, i think it’s helped open me up more to letting love in and not being scared of the inevitable pain in letting go. i would never forego the fleeting moments of eventual sadness if it meant forsaking the bliss of heartfelt connection with those i’ve loved and let go, this year and always. you never know when it will end, or how, but someday it will, and that’s okay. just because you know it will end, doesn’t mean you can’t love it while it’s there. sometimes, you love it even more. 

in High Fidelity, Rob gives us his “all-time desert-island top 5 most memorable break-ups”. in keeping with that tradition, and because everybody loves a good top 5, here are my top 5 most memorable break-ups of the year: free-love lessons from my heart to yours.  

5. the district sleeps alone

“i’d rather talk to you than sleep with you.” not exactly the words you want to hear from the adorable object of your affection while he’s buying you drinks at the bar. he thought it was a compliment. i wasn’t thrilled, but decided that was better than the alternative.

he made my trips to DC exciting and romantic, our chemistry magnetic and fiery from the start. we could talk for days.

his family’s Christian values made me seem exotic; my mind appealed to his thirst for debate, solution. i thought he lived a little too inside-the-box, a fun challenge for me to break him free from his chains of right-and-wrong and rigid sense of obligation to duty. i loved his smile, bright with innocence and wonder.

he took me to lunch for my birthday. 

he’ll be a great doctor, i remember thinking, embarrassed by my eggs florentine to his vegan ravioli as i looked at him across the table.

…and an amazing father.  

he was everything i wasn’t looking for.

we walked together downtown to our separate activities; his a med school lecture, mine a book release at the US Institute of Peace.

we met later on his study break at a friend’s, pausing for a kiss hello, awkward in novelty. we planned our next sleepover – how DC of us. before he left the apartment, we looked at our reflection together in the mirror.

“couple of the year!” he said, grinning. my reflection raised her eyebrows. i had to admit, we looked good.

“couple of the week?” i wanted to slurp my words back in as they dribbled down my chin. fuck.

my reflection took an interest in the carpet.   

i saw him again at a friend’s birthday dinner; he eyeballed my steak and ate grilled portobellos. he left early to study for exams. we kissed goodnight.

there were no more sleepovers.

“i’ll give you some of my sweet Shiva nectar, baby.” i texted him some racy Hindu humor from Baltimore, my chakras glowing from a spiritual weekend of chanting meditation with the legend Baghavan Das filling my soul with mantra delight.

no response. no explanation. i didn’t need one, i guess.

weeks later i wrote him to clear the air, hoping we could manage a friendship.

nada.   

now, a year later, he’s engaged to be married. i imagine she’s everything he’s been looking for.

…i bet her nectar is sweet.

----------------

case of the mondays

sweating off my stress-induced brownie overdose,
i chose between the woman
who killed her own mother,
and the hot blonde detailing the ins and outs
of the months and years
of her kidnapping, rape and torture
by strangers,
both in high definition,
for my evening entertainment pleasure.

at least they're playing n'sync on the radio,
14-year-old me smiled at the silver lining.
(so had the blonde on TV).

all of us were white.
half of us had obvious eating disorders
in our castle of privilege in the sky
with diamonds.

after 30 mins. on the treadmill,
i've gained 4 lbs. in 2 months.
...it's not muscle.

it's just me,
wild and free.
in
Merica, the beautiful.

home for a nomad: a thank-you note

home is where the heart is...

...or so they say. 

and i tend to agree. but what if your heart is in a zillion different places simultaneously, intertwined with the hearts of hundreds of souls scattered in cities and suburbs and jungle lands and beach towns everywhere? in your case, creating a tangible sense of home becomes a daunting undertaking despite deep desires to nest, to grow roots somewhere, anywhere. the inescapable plight of the modern-day nomad, whose physical home may change with the tides, leaving in her sea-foam wake a trail of existential angst, twinges of nostalgia for what might have been (if only…); but whose heart, it turns out, is most at home in wandering.

……

“está bien. i’ll check your second bag for free.” i looked up from my disheveled mess in disbelief, shoes and toiletries strewn about the shiny marble tile. it wasn’t a common phrase in any language, let alone airline-speak. especially when the contents of your makeshift 32-pound second bag once inhabited the magical space above the top layer of your already-stuffed first bag, zippers bursting at the seams after twenty minutes of sweating the thing closed, chafed knuckles from the spots where strain met coarse fabric head-on. it’s a two-person job, really.

grateful, i graciously accepted and smiled sweetly, repaying him for his unprecedented kindness in innocently seductive eye contact. stoked that i had narrowly evaded the $200 he originally threatened, i was also embarrassed in a way that irked my soul: what kind of self-proclaimed nomad stuffs 82 pounds of worldly possessions into a giant roller bag for a three-month adventure? even if this adventure was technically work-related and i’d packed everything i own resembling ‘business casual’, plus the usual warm-weather suspects since it’s summertime, and an array of atypical cold-weather cover-ups for chilly-breezy San Diego eves, and an old pair of CFM heels just in case; still, there was no excuse. i was weighing myself down both physically and spiritually with stuff, and now that i scored a freebee at the check-in counter and watched my bag disappear on that filthy luggage belt, there was no turning back. he should have charged me that $200; teach a faux nomad a lesson in letting go. to add even further insult to auto-criticism of nomad self, the Chilean hitch-hiker chick i picked up in Hermosa en route to the airport had been travelling for two years with only a small backpack in tow. now that’s what i call freedom. gracias, Chilena citizen of the wind, rub it in a little deeper. (nomad self itching to crawl into giant suitcase in backseat and die.)

fortunately for my soul, if not for my tired limbs, lugging all that shit onto public buses, in taxis and through the unforgiving New York City subway system might have been the karmic lesson i had been looking for. so i’ve started getting over it after making a pact with myself that whatever i don’t use on the trip i have to give away to someone who needs it. since then, i’ve been spending time honoring rather than criticizing nomad self by celebrating some of the other joys of being the wanderer i have come to be. embracing the chosen privilege to get lost to get found, to find joy in the freedom of not knowing what tomorrow will bring, nearly a year of heart-and-soul-felt experiences bouncing between loaned beds and borrowed cars in cities and surf spots from New York to Medellin. 

i’d done my fair bit of wanderlust traveling in the past, but this year has felt different. aside from a few surf trips, i haven’t wanted strangers in strange lands, solo adventures lacking roots or purpose. much to my surprise (oh god, this must mean i’m getting old), my wanderings have taken a turn for the familiar, letting my lonely heart, rather than my insatiable curiosity, guide me on my path to where i'm going. wanting to be near and with the people i love who i don’t get to see very often, i’ve spent the year being present in the lives of friends and family, many times coincidentally arriving just in time for exciting events as if by divine serendipity. births, deaths, graduations, moon celebrations, birthdays, engagements, weddings, spiritual workshops, winter wonderlands, anniversaries, concerts, motorcycle trips through the Andes, boats, trains, planes, bath-time with my babies, comings and goings, falling in love, getting dumped, camping in the rain, blogging, publishing, sweat-lodging, surf-tripping, joyful welcomings, tearful goodbyes. it’s been a mixed bag of emotions to say the least, but i can say with a clear conscience that it’s been life lived from the heart.

while content in my nomad travels and joyful that i’ve been able to spend time in familiar places with those i love, this rootlessness weighs on me in an indescribable way. i find myself praying for stability, for a sense of home, for building myself into and becoming part of a community that grows with and alongside me, even something as simple as living somewhere for longer than a week or a month maybe, instead of living out of a suitcase and changing direction like a lost honeybee in the springtime. The word HOME took center stage on my vision board last month. 'create a sense of home' is my long-standing new year's resolution for like half a decade. my yoga intention has been HOME for months now, ironic when my morning practice might find me flowing and OM-ing on different continents from one week to the next. 

it’s like this grasping for something that keeps getting further and further away. as much as i’m craving home, my nomad reality doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. upcoming commitments with the inspiring Women PeaceMakers Program here in San Diego, an exciting opportunity for global peacebuilding at the GAMIP Summit inSwitzerland in September, 14 months of pending doctoral research in four communities in Ecuador and Bolivia slated for next year, a leadership role on surf tourism development courses in Costa Rica and Fiji; these are the new purpose-driven nomad adventures igniting my soul today as i envision them all coming to fruition, becoming the person i am through my soul-driven journey to all corners of the globe. i embrace these challenges rather than shy away, yet i visit friends’ and strangers’ homes and i envy them, all of their beautiful art on the walls, their own dishes, closets, framed pictures of loved ones on the coffee table, something cooking on the stove, cushy pillows, magnets holding to-do lists on the fridge. their own unique slice of safe haven, a place to rest and be. i want that. i pray for home and i get at least three more years of inspired nomad in my foreseeable future.

for nearly a year now, i’ve been gainfully unemployed – writing, reading, surfing, loving, living; a stint of life now coming to an end as i embark upon a new professional journey in Southern California – nine-to-five, NPR in traffic, longboard waves, writing, loving, living. i was tired from the cross-country flight to my new reality. but as the plane landed at LAX last week, something crazy donned on me like a little Taser jolt to the brain: i was going home.   

...in a way. 

i had spent ten of the most formative years of my life in this place, longer than i’d lived anywhere in my quarter-century or so of earthliness, despite feeling like i was fresh off the boat, culture shocked in my own native land. but i guess if we’re going by the numbers, this new journey was actually a sort of homecoming to a place that now felt foreign and familiar at the same time. driving through the Valley, recognizing exit signs, street corners, preschool, penguin ice cream shop here, thai restaurant there, overpass where the homeless lady we gave red grapes to used to live, the spot where the old bowling alley used to be where i’d spent countless days with my dad when i was mini, trying to bowl a strike to earn my giant slice of chocolate cake from the deli that used to be down the street. a de-ja-vu slew of memories you never knew you had; a sense that what was is not what is now. and it certainly isn’t who you’ve become today. another lifetime with your memory flashes as glimpses into a past that doesn’t even feel like yours. a movie playing on your retina where you can eerily predict what happens next. a puppet master directing somebody else’s show.  

but in all of its estranged familiarity, parts of it do feel like home. especially the new-old parts. reminiscing and welcoming newfound kinship with family i usually only see on very special occasions; deepening friendships with faces i’ve known for years but whose authentic humanness i am now experiencing anew.

“do you think you’ll ever settle down somewhere? have a real home someday?” my brother-in-law Jon and fake cousin Leah asked the same question on separate days from separate coasts.

“i have absolutely no idea.” and i really don’t. and that should totally freak me out, right?

reflecting on a year of heart-filled wandering, and celebrating my temporary SoCal homecoming of sorts, i discover that i’m surprisingly at ease, unknowingly testing out a new life hypothesis: home for a nomad. because for the nomad (including self-critical faux nomads like me), maybe when your heart is full, home is everywhere you happen to find yourself in any given moment. you are home. and thanks to the generosity and compassion of friends and family, today i’m not worried about when or if i’ll finally ‘settle down’ and stretch my roots into the Earth. 

right now, in this second, with a full heart and renewed zest for living, all i am is gratitude.

gratitude for those who have helped me and loved me on my journey home.

...thank you.