notes from my travels
try to use computer less (just for work)NO INSTAGRAM!
go outside for at least 1 min before going on phone in morning
spend time alone outside (beach, reading, hiking, running)
be more confident & apply to stuff
personal statement/artist bio: make more about my story/values/ethics (imagine reading it. want someone interesting)
find alternatives to tech: books of games/puzzles/sudoku/crosswords; podcasts instead of online research, local recs instead of overplanning
set aside time for 'being informed' - IG for DJs, world news, etc.
dedicated time for reflection (park time?)
keep schedule of Tues-Thurs work
identify priority projects + deadlines if useful
make larger meals so more leftovers, or do healthy snack dinner
listen to more folk music and grateful dead
think of things to do while young and do them
- change physical appearance in crazy way
- travel for dumb reasons/events
- take a dance class or something
- get a perm/dye hair
- go out
fix portfolio
make list of pieces I want to write, and write them
get better at DJing and throw riskier creative events
email and get coffee with abandon
read, read, read
paint (if time allows...)
figure out ways of socializing that overlap with interests or responsibilities
be better at time management
090224 (impressions)
• the little beetle bugs scattered around the bathroom in Mole Motel• a hyena running across the night road, bush babies flying, a porcupine ambling along, a genet cat tail, the cool night breeze
• the little boy girls with shaved heads, flies sitting on their faces, kajal on their eyes, feet wet with mud and goat poop...or maybe that's just just my Tevas...holding my hand.
• a warm, cinnamony pastel de nada at the Manteigaria, the Starbucks of pasteis
• the warm waters of Mġarr ix-Xini, swimming with the fishes, I lost my glasses diving.
• the woman passed out on the hike to Il-Munqar Bay, from dehydration, exhaustion, and intense heat
• Marco from Benagil, the ferries making waves in the sea
• Larabanga mosque, with the old black sticks poking out. white clay, shrunken doors. separate rooms for ladies and men
• the driver playing Jerusalema, Christie, and From on repeat while whizzing past goats sitting in the road and trucks hurtling at us full-speed
• cod in lackluster cream in Aveiro, at a desperate lunch by the canals and seaport
091124
on a flight leg between Rome and Chicago, shitty ravioli and rosemary crackers in my tummy, seems like the wrong time to be reflecting on my eight weeks out of the country. I’ve been putting it off for a while now—no moment felt right, or like I had anything meaningful to say.but do i now? when i put finger to keystroke, it feels silly to purport that eight weeks gone would have any measurable effect on my psyche. although my travels are still not over, it feels we have come to the end. for weeks i’d been elucidating the plan: drive through Canada, then back down through Michigan for fourth of July and to drop off the dog, then a week’s jaunt back home, then to Europe—a road trip through Northern Spain, a wedding in Barcelona, then meeting up with Jason for travels in Malta and Portugal, a college friends reunion in Lagos, a visit to Jason’s brother in Geneva, to our friends in London, then to Ghana to visit his sister, my first time in Africa. then back to Chicago to pick up my car, pick up the dog, and hightail it back to San Francisco, where life has been going on without me for the past four months.
so much has happened since then, but sometimes when I’m in the city, four months passes by like nothing. Every day a new adventure: from visiting architecturally stunning wineries in Bilbao to rawdogging a pee behind a market in Tamale. From jetskiing in the Mediterranean to taking the train back from Lauterbrunnen in the middle of the night, passing the party kids in Bern, the midnight owls in Lausanne. walking the empty streets of Lausanne, brand names and boutiques dead in the night, dashing madly to catch the last train back from a weirdly expensive dive bar, the only place to get a beer past 11pm. drinking caipirinhas on our rooftop in Lagos, a light coastal breeze underfoot. missing our train to Lagos in a hungover daze, going out on pink street the night before with Canadians from our hostel, the most detestable tourist activity.
eating without digesting, living without processing. I was hoping i was pregnant but instead it seems like i’ve just gained weight. from Maltese pastizzi to ravjula, the most achingly delicious pizza from Sicily and Naples, with guanciale and pistachio, Basque pinxtos of sea urchin and anchovy and foie gras, way too many pasteis de nata, fondue and raclette, the best Indian food in London… thinking forward to california, and running, and healthy eating, and masochism. In Ghana, i was not a fan of swallow; fufu, banku, didn’t do it for me. Slimy okra and fake saag reminded me of how Indian I am. I lived on kelewele and jollof, a bofrot and Lebanese food…
yo la tengo and modest mouse on airplane mode feels like a long lost friend. I haven’t felt so American in days, distancing myself from it as if it were a foreign culture, with rising gun violence, a tumultuous election, and support for a genocide that will be a stain on the country’s history til the end of time. and me watching it all in Spanish, in English on mounted televisions in the airport in Accra, in the cafe, ordering a double espresso, on the front page of El Mundo. “that is not my country,” i say and feel. “that is a scary place,” i point. I tell the vendors from Burkina that I am from India (a no better country, surely.) but what of the midwest emo, the grunge, that misery and malaise that is so quintessentially American? i will have to make an exception, maybe…
now to return to the Midwest, a place with roots, as far as any place goes for me. now to pick up Nyla, who has been at summer camp for two months and doesn’t even know we’re coming back. now to drive a car, after getting absolutely everywhere on foot or via train in Europe. my step count suffered in Ghana; my fitness app is passive aggressive with me. I resolve to use public transit in San Francisco, no matter how inconvenient. to explore by foot is such a special thing, exposes you to people, places, and times you might otherwise never see.
how to remake myself in a city I feel so faraway from? i feel even stronger now that I need to move. I brought Ghanaian snacks from MIG Mart to remind everyone I exist and convince them to love me again. my favorite places I visited: Banff and Jasper, Bilbao, Malta and Gozo, Baleal, Lisbon. maybe I could make a home there. San Sebastián- too preppy, Barcelona- too basic, Porto and Lagos- too touristy, Switzerland- too expensive, London- too grey, Accra- too boring.
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