Seasons Greetings, Spirit Animals, and Other Fluffy Things

It’s a new year, it’s time to reflect on the year’s past; right? This year the holidays snuck up on me. Being too consumed with trying to find work, housing, transportation to my new job, and handling visa papers, I haven’t had much room to reflect on the things we’re meant to reflect on.

The consequence of being a lone traveler relocating to a new town means being alone, and busy. I’ve been telling myself that it’s just any other day really, why hold so much importance to yet another day? As true as this might be, I can’t help but feel a little in denial. Even with all of life’s great distractions, it’s hard to not realize the lack of really close friends in proximity to me this season.

I had a moment of melancholy on Christmas eve, but after going on a walk and having a moment to think, I realized that I was exactly where I wanted to be. All of my actions in the past year have lead up to this moment and I was missing it in self pity for what I didn’t have. There’s great satisfaction in realizing I was living a scenario I had only dreamed of years ago. I realized then, that there will always be something a bit lacking in life. It’s up to us to look at what benefits us.

I also remembered that though I might physically be alone; my friends and family, far away, would be thinking of me as I thought of them. The cheesy cliches win out again in the circular pattern of my thinking. Love, positivity, and rainbows are realities sometimes; and I have become afraid of these bright omens, for they are uncool.

And now, on the eve of the new year, I’m sitting on my new back porch under a gum tree, watching the neighbor’s escaped rabbit run between bushes. I tried catching him this morning, but right now I’m content in knowing he’s having the time of his life right now. The rabbit and I are like kindred spirits- free to go where we please, if only for a now.   Well, I’m off to go party. Happy new year!

World Bowlers

I’m not a fan of bowling, despite it being a favorite pastime of some of my favorite people in the world. The combination of finger food, shared balls, shit beer, and personal let-downs just doesn’t appeal to me.

But the other night I managed to make an exception. It wasn’t because bowling suddenly became fun for me, it was the insanely odd situation I had found myself in that made this Thursday night exceptional.

A surprisingly little known fact: the most bombed country in the world is Laos. A less startling, yet still bizarre, little known fact; Luang Prabang has a bowling alley that fills with foreigners from night to night. And this bowling alley happens to be where I found myself spending my Thursday night in Laos.

Upon arriving, the judgmental hipster in me instantly wanted to hate the place as I entered it.

“Where are all of the locals?”

For me, this was a disgusting display of western drunken influence on an old and beautiful culture. I instantly wanted to distance myself from it.

Stuck there until my current travel companions decided to leave, I soon found myself as a fly on the wall.

There I was, alone in a room full of foreigners from all over the world getting drunk and making fools of themselves. It was disgusting, it was intriguing, it was… Beautiful?… The anthropologist in me was suddenly intrigued.

You see, back at home when entering a busy place full of people who you don’t know, its a bit odd to sit down at a random table and easily join in in a conversation with strangers.
But we were in travelers land!
No one really knew anyone, except the few traveling with friends from home.

Belgium, Argentina, China, England, Australia, Switzerland, Egypt, France… Everyone was from another country! Everyone was getting along, united by the oddity of a bowling alley in a small town in Laos.

This was a beautifully insane thing.

Photo by Victoria from Pommie Travels

pommietravels.com

Chiang Mai Train Ride

Originally posted June 2013

A little soul on a train all alone.

How do you draw a great expanse of space and time? How do you write of the sensation of speeding past beautiful scenes on a clicking bullet; all the while being oddly aware, but not fully comprehending, the lands, mountains, and oceans separating you from home, friends, and anyone who knows your name?

I am simply a little soul on a train in a great expanse of land full of many. And there is something wholly awe-inspiring about that, something exciting as well as deeply lonely.

I plug my music into my ears and I can’t help but cry from the sheer beauty and power of this experience. Music, art, and literature are the tools we use to share and connect with the other humans around us. An artistic connection helps us not feel so alone in the world. But nothing can compare to the dizzying sensation of being completely in a moment.

I am not alone in my loneliness, therefore I’m not alone.

-zazz

Peter Bradley Adams everyone,

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