Vietnam: Forgiveness

Today I fly home to America. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I've been living out of a bag and sleeping in a different bed each night since November. While I've grown accustomed to the lifestyle, I do feel that it's time for me to return home to begin the next chapter of my life in New York City. But first, allow me one final reflection.

I've been in Vietnam for 2.5 weeks and during that time I have motorbiked through the mountains in the Ha Giang province, helped Vietnamese youth practice their English over a lakeside conversation in Hanoi, explored the massive island of Cat Ba, kayaked through caves at Ha Long Bay, retraced steps of monks at pagodas in Ninh Binh, renunited with friends in Da Nang, relaxed on the beaches of Hoi An, and bartered my tush off at street markets in Saigon. At no point in my travels this far have I had so many different cultural and geographical experiences in such a short span of time. It's been exhilarating.

I've never dwelt on a post quite the way I have with this one and Vietnam. As an American in this country, I'm overwhelmed with a mixed bag of feelings every time I walk down the street. There are feelings of gratitude to be able to visit such a beautiful country, feelings of guilt at past wrongdoings I feel on behalf of my country, and hope I see in the faces of people I pass whose smiles mean more here than anywhere else. But of all that I've learned and will continue to learn as I reflect on this experience, the biggest takeaway for me revolves around the idea of forgiveness and how I see it manifested in the people here.

I still can't believe we invaded this country. What were we thinking? On a government level, it was ludicrous. Why were we so concerned with mitigating an ideology that posed so little real threat to us? On a strategic level it was stupid: the Vietnamese know the ins and outs of this landscape and it's no wonder we were scared shitless in the dark depths of the jungle. On a humanitarian level it was just inexcusable: horrific war crimes, senseless massacres of innocent civilians including children and Agent Orange permeation which has led to awful birth defects passed down from generation to generation for who knows how long. The more I think and learn about it, the angrier I get.

If someone belonging to the lineage of the people who had committed these atrocities came to visit my country, I'd treat them like dirt. Who are they to think they can harm us so deeply and then come and enjoy our country? Who are they to think they are exempt from past wrongdoings? Who are they to drop bombs in one decade and drop dollars on hotels the next? As I attempt to put myself in the shoes of the Vietnamese, I just get angrier at myself and the country I come from. After all, holding grudges is the American way.

But when I take my own appropriations out of it and just observe the way the Vietnamese treat me, I am mystified. Where there should be scowls, there's smiles. Where there should be closed doors, there's open arms. And where there should be resentment, there's forgiveness. There's beautiful, inexplicable and undeserved forgiveness.

I'm overwhelmed by it. When it comes to human nature, there's nothing more counterintuitive than forgiveness. If someone wrongs you, you keep away from them. You keep away from them because there's no reason to think they won't wrong you again. Primitively speaking, if self-preservation is the rule, then forgiveness is its antithesis because to forgive not only jeopardizes your safety but it fails to illustrate the harsh finality of nature. When you jump off a bridge, nature (and gravity) say you're going to hit the ground. When you stare into the sun, nature (and your mom) says you're gonna go blind. When you wrong a human being, you've harmed a relationship. But what's different about the final example is the reaction of the object at play. The ground is indifferent when you hit it. The sun will keep shining even if you stare at it. But when you wrong a human being, suddenly there's more options. The human being can react as you'd expect - infuriated as a result of an injustice done against them. But after that initial reaction subsides and the painful truth of acceptance settles itself in, something crazy happens: there's an option, however difficult it is to practice, to forgive the person for committing that wrongdoing! And here-in lies the beauty of humanity - when terrible events occur, the spirit and soul of humankind can still overcome. And as history and Vietnam for me illustrates, the human spirit can be crushed but it cannot be eradicated.

So when a Vietnamese person asks me where I come from, I have a responsibility to say "American". I have a responsibility because no matter my particular beliefs or background, I am the ambassador of bad deeds on behalf of my lineage. I don't get off that easily. Sure I can bitch about it being unfair, but the real unfairness lies in the fact that they have to deal with me at all. There's of course been times when my answer to their question prompts a sigh or a grunt. But more often than not, when I look a Vietnamese person dead in the eye and tell them "I'm American" I see them first affected deeply but then I watch as they rapidly put to rest their prejudice and form a smile. And when you bear witness to this exchange and see someone actively decide to let the past be the past and decide to give someone a chance, it's divine. It's otherworldly shit. Something that I'll spend the rest of my life practicing and something that I'll always remember as long as I live.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for supporting me through my journeys. And thank you for being you. I'll see you soon, friend.

Cambodia: There are flowers in the undergrowth

It is highly unfortunate I only have one week to spend in Cambodia as I am just starting to wrap my head around the culture here. It is a beautiful country with humorous, friendly people who work hard and play hard. While the countryside is plush with the greenest of nature and sequestered temples, the cities are bustling and smelly, teeming with life and hustle.

Those of you who have been reading along with my blog since the start of my trip more than four months ago know that in my posts I aim to enlighten. While I feel it's important to share my experience, I want to make sure there's something you can take away from reading other than just "Oh good, Mac is having a great time." That is why, although it's a dark subject, I wanted to talk about the one aspect of this culture that I just can't stop thinking about. The one event that took place here that shaped life so thoroughly. And the event that I've spent the last several days learning about and trying to understand how and why it happened: The Cambodian Genocide. While I am the farthest thing from an expert on the topic, I visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21 Prison where they tortured and killed enemies of the regime) and I visited the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek (where they systematically killed over 20,000 men, women and children). While such terror can't be fully comprehended by outside eyes more than 40 years after the event, I have spent several days reflecting on this event, what it means for modern-day Cambodia, and most jarringly, what it means to be an American as our country played a large role in the event.

First, a little historical background. In 1975, a communist party called the Khmer Rouge overthrew Cambodia's Khmer Republic, a U.S. backed government that had been in power since 1970. I'm pulling the rest from Wikipedia because it's just easier lol - Following their victory, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, installed a government called the Democratic Kampuchea and immediately set about forcibly depopulating the country's cities, murdering hundreds of thousands of their perceived political opponents and carrying out the Cambodian genocide in which 1.5 to 3 million people (around 25% of Cambodia's population) died.

The Khmer Rouge regime was highly autocratic, xenophobic, paranoid, and repressive. The genocide was under the guise of the Khmer Rouge enforcing its social engineering policies. Its attempts at agricultural reform led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, even in the supply of medicine, led to the death of thousands from treatable diseases such as malaria. Part of the purification included numerous genocides of Cambodian minorities. Arbitrary executions and torture were carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during genocidal purges of its own ranks between 1975 and 1978.

I had known Cambodia had a rough past but I had no idea the extent of the attrocities. When I learned that a quarter of the population died, I was flabbergasted. I couldn't comprehend how this was not a more talked about event, how this wasn't a subject covered in my high school world history classes and how, like the Chilean dictatorship, just how much of the world's major events we don't talk about in the U.S.

The Genocide Museum and Killing Fields were the most powerful museums I've ever visited. Patrons walk through the prison where they tortured thousands of people, most of whom didn't know anything and didn't pose any actual threat to the regime. Barbed wire still encircles the premise, the bed frames where they carried out torture are still in their places, and the walls still covered in blood. You could just feel the souls' unrest in this place. The air itself was suffocating. Death loomed. The Killing Fields, although situated in a gorgeous patch of countryside, were the burial grounds of thousands of victims. Bones and clothing poked through the ground as you walked across dykes between massive burial pits. Chemical deposits of DTT, which were used to mask the musk of death could still be seen in the ground alongside clubs, hatchets, and other objects that served as cheaper means of murder than bullets.

Harrowing as it was, I'll spare any further gruesome details. My aim here is not to provoke but to show the extent of the tragedy. To get the real experience, you'll just have to come to Cambodia. But I must have walked around Tuol Sleng for the better part of four hours, dialing in every number the audio tour had to offer, listening to the history, testimonials and anecdotes. I even had the privilege to hear from a survivor who had been transported against her will to till the fields under unbearable conditions that took her whole family from her.

After I left the museum, I just meandered around Phnom Penh for a couple hours, my mind bogged down with horrors. I just wanted to observe people in the streets and find out how looking at the culture through the lens of the recent mass death changed my perception of present life.

I was first struck by the realization that most Cambodians I saw probably lost someone they loved. Older men had lost brothers, sons and wives, younger women had lost fathers and aunts, even young kids probably had grandparents that were taken from them before they were born. If one in four people died, extrapolate and just think of how many people that affects. Just about everyone.

My second thought was just how much this event had set the country back. I don't know if Cambodia has ever enjoyed a great deal of prosperity but there's no doubt that compared to Thailand, Cambodia is far-underdeveloped. People here hustle harder than I've ever seen - they'll ask you repeatedly to buy their merchandise or if you need a ride and their insistence does not stem from a cultivated work ethic but from a clear need to make enough that day to feed their family.

My third thought was introspective and concerned my American identity. In the museum I learned that in 1975, a great deal of Cambodia wanted to move away from the western influence of America that was a foundation of the government then in power. Thus the initial Khmer Rouge victory was a result of a marked counter-movement to everything my country valued. I also learned just how much American presence in Vietnam devastated Cambodia as we dropped millions of tons of bombs onto the Cambodian countryside, killing thousands of civilians and farmers. Around this time I just started to get angry. There is still a profound resentment of Americans in Southeast Asia and I understand why. Why must the place I was born be such a burden for me to bear? Why must values that I don't even associate with comprise my identity? Why should I be the modern incarnation of a thousand shitty choices soft-handed, white men in office made before I was even born? My immediate response to my own thoughts were that I should be so lucky to even have privileged thoughts as these. But what good is privilege if you're trapped in it? A thousand thoughts like this shot around in my head like an atom's rogue electrons until I just wanted a beer.

When all seems bleak, it's difficult to look on the bright side. But if there's one silver lining in this whole experience for me it's that with great struggle emerges tremendous beauty. And that beauty takes the form of Cambodian faces. Everywhere I go, I see smiles. I see laughter. I see people with far less enjoying life far more. And I can only attribute this to the triumph of the human spirit. The unquenchable desire to move away from the darkness of the past and embrace the light of hope. A drive that can only come from being down so long that there's no place to go but up. And every time a Cambodian smiles at me on the street, it carries far more weight than a smile from an American because it is a smile born of beauty, one of rebirth and a smile that illuminates the faces of the thousands before them who were deprived of their smiles. As my tears grace my keyboard I know that it's time to stop writing and time to start thanking these people for their endless strength. Even seeds ripped from their flowers can rise once again.

Initial thoughts on Thailand

The other side of the world. So far from everything and everyone I know. And I love it. 

At first the transition to Thailand wasn't easy. I stepped out of the airport tram and into the street and was almost toasted by a scooter within the first 30 seconds. Turns out the they drive on the other side of the street here. Look right, then left before crossing ;)

My head was buzzing for the first 24 hours just trying to comprehend the difference in the pace and structure of life. But now that it's been five days, I'm beginning to lean fully into it (going for all the crazy street food I can, attending a Thai boxing match alone, letting Thai kids play with my beard, etc) and I love every second of it. 

As is my blogging tradition when entering a new culture, I try to lay out three key observations and dive into them. While by no means representative of the entire culture (how could it be?) and not meant to stereotype in any way, here's what's been most striking to me thus far in my first far-east experience. I'll do my best not to sound TOO much like Tom Cruise in the Last Samurai when describing his eastern culture observations. But no promises. 

True gentleness and kindness comes from within

I think one of my least favorite aspects of Americans is their volatility and capacity for rage. Because we live in a country where expectations are so high, life is fast-paced and our "I-deserve-this complex" permeates our being, Americans just always seem like they're on the verge of exploding. Only when you separate yourself geographically from this mentality do you realize just how unattractive it is and how taxing it all can be. We burn ourselves down to nothing and at the end of the day what is it all for?

Thailand seems composed of gentle spirits. Every time I walk down a street, sure I get the stares, but I also get the smiles. The welcoming faces. And people willing to help me, even if there's no money involved (tourism is a massive industry here and is the driving catalyst for most street-side dialogue with locals). This gentleness begins inwardly and radiates outwardly through the eyes. And it informs the way Thai people treat one another. Not once have I seen a Thai person raise their voice in anger at another person. I see tough love in places but at the end of the day, it is still love. 

People here appear to exist independently of time and through nature. Nothing seems forced. All is in its place and appears content where it is. Do people here dream? I'm sure. Do people here yearn for more? Absolutely. But it seems clear to me they don't let these dreams and hope for their future keep them from enjoying the present. Read that sentence again. 

An inner peace exists here that I yearn to one day achieve. While we can't change the values and pace of our culture, we can cultivate inward stillness. We can focus on giving ourselves and others breaks. We can breathe deeper and appreciate more. As much as our culture composes our DNA, we are not slaves to it. We can still lead with love. 

Your work is your passion and your identity.

My first day here I spent in the markets of Bangkok. I saw a flurry of merchants, cooks, friends, dogs, flies, vegetables, sauces, bins, supplies, shirts, signs, and humidity all mashed together in a way I'd never seen before. People running to and fro, deep-fried fish and insects here, Bangkok novelties hawked a few feet to the left and a pack of scooter boys having a smoke a few feet further. No barricades between operations - just a shared space where everybody knows everybody and anybody asks anybody for anything. With the proximity and interplay of business, there were no barriers. Nobody can wall up and do their own thing. Nobody can create a service that trumps all others and forces the mom and pop shop out of town. Everybody instead leans on everybody else, thrives as a result of their interconnectedness and because a rising tide lifts all boats, nobody bitches and moans - they just put their heads down and do their work because that's how they get by and how they support their families and the greater community. 

Perhaps as a result of the shared business experience, there's an extreme ownership over one's work. Your trade is your passion. Your craft is your lifeblood. Your work puts food on the table. And what was even more intriguing? There's joy in one's work. How do I know this? Well if you compare just the amount of smiles and laughs Thai people have when they're doing their work against the number of smiles and laughs Americans share when they work, I have a feeling the result would be sad for us. Because of close proximity to other businesses, because your colleagues are your friends and because your work is such an integral part of your life, work seems actually enjoyable. I doubt many Thai people feel depressed on Sunday nights before having to work Monday mornings. While work is work and it needs to happen no matter the culture, there's something to be said about how work needn't be a dread or a bore - it can be a haven and a purpose.

I fully realize I'm taking surface-level observations and making deep speculations. I know that. And I know that just because my foreign ass saw something for thirty minutes one day while in a foreign country, doesn't mean it's true. But observing a culture only becomes truly useful when you can stack the observations against yourself, your own life and your own culture. And that's all I aim to do here.

If you can smile, you're winning

It's incredible the power a smile can have. Smiles and laughter - the power they have over a person and the change they can create in communities are the reasons I want to dedicate my life to comedy in all its forms. In Thailand there's no comedy theater with shows. But there's comedy everywhere. The same joy that opens people up in the audience of a live comedy show back home opens people up on the streets here. The exploration of universal truths that break down barriers back home is a force here. And even though I've only been here five days, I've smiled and laughed an incredibly high number of times. When walking through the streets of America, people keep to themselves, they have places to be and they silo themselves off from others. Here people have time to look around, they make an effort to meet the eyes and they know it doesn't take much to make a smile. 

I've experienced smiles that welcome me. I've experienced smiles because "that tall white man's head just does not fit into this train car". I've experienced smiles because I've spent the better part of the day playing around in a cafe with a two year old named Kia who always finds new ways to play with his bag of chips. He's sitting on my lap as I write this and he keeps pjuaying wdrith theeeee k3yboorde. Maybe it's because I've grown so used to meeting new people in my four months of travel that I'm able to relax and smile more easily. But I notice this same smile-off between locals and other travelers. Life is often crazy here, it's not always easy and the economic disparity between groups may be the highest I've ever seen. But just because you are at Point A and you need to get to Point B, it doesn't mean you can't smile in between. Smile more.

Without further ado, here's Kia:

Self-Analysis Post Europe

This entry is more introspective in nature than the other culturally-focused ones. I typically tend to wait to write an entry until I have some pressing realization or cultural bemusement that I feel compelled to share. One that I can expound on fully and share as an experience that is illuminating to me and hopefully enlightening for you. But as I've been on the road for nearly four months, I find that one of my greatest challenges has been just processing all that has happened. So here's a post that has allowed me to reflect while simultaneously shedding light on the maelstrom of thoughts and feelings that so frequently invade my brain.

As I roll into my final day in Europe, I'm overwhelmed by the memories I've made in Spain, Portugal, Italy and for a single afternoon, Switzerland. I've seen a myriad of mankind's most impressive art and architecture ranging from the Sistine Chapel and canals of Venice to motion-activated escalators. I've reunited with many of my Euro-dwelling friends and was overwhelmed by their hospitality. I've eaten mindblowingly flavorful food that is steeped in tradition. I've retraced the footsteps of saints and geniuses alike. And I've worn some variation of the same five articles of clothing every damn day.

Through my travels up to this point, I feel like I've grown as a person and as a human organism. I've been pushed out of my comfort zone a million times. I've been forced to acclimate to new environment after new environment. I've made a fool of myself like never before and I found out that, much to my chagrin, my mother is still very capable of massively embarrassing me. I know it's going to take me years to wrap my mind around everything that's happening to me in this very moment. And that's okay - it's okay to live now and learn later.

Allow me to officially begin my lengthy pontification with the point of endless independence.

It's rare in life that we have full autonomy. Most aspects of life that we so cherish also serve as restraints - family, relationships, jobs, hobbies, communities, etc. While these things provide a sense of purpose and belonging, they also dictate our behavior. We live for them while living under them.

When you're in full travel mode and your itinerary is blown wide open, you only have two things that dictate your behavior - time and money. Everything else (within reason and lifestyle preference obviously) is up to you.

The resulting freedom can be euphoric - one realizes the endless possibilities of a single day and life finally feels completely lived, fully experienced and incredibly interesting. A hint of this feeling I experienced while traveling through the Balkans five years ago and it's the same feeling that catapulted me into this adventure of a lifetime I find myself in the middle of today. You've escaped social tethers! You are your own man! You can be the person you want to be and capitalize fully on the wanderlust you've felt at your office job for the last several years! This feeling is intoxicating and I keep having these freak out moments of clarity where my heart races and I just have to stop and tell myself "You're really here. This is really happening. My God."

While euphoric, this freedom can also lead to massive loneliness. You're floating around the globe, carried on the wings of lightness and though you can do anything you mean nothing. You have nobody waiting for you to come home today, you have nobody to report to, you have no responsibilities of any sort, your presence has little impact on the locals who oftentimes see you as just another fly in the meat and you exhaust yourself hoping exposure to the exotic will fill the dearly missed void of the familiar. You exhaust yourself so much that it takes a night of stomach-wrenching agony in Madrid and a subsequent 36 hours of fever sweats and horizontal positions until you finally accept the fact that your body just. needs. to. rest.

While there are a million little choices to make each day, they are all made under the colossal shadow of needing to further your life purpose and you question whether seeing any of this new stuff and meeting these new people will actually make any real difference in your life. You can't help feel that all the other people trying to make a living producing comedy are back in the U.S. working their asses off at their dream while you're out here bumming around like a ascetic.

As an attempt at piecing these thoughts together, allow me to say that I believe true travel really cuts to the heart of your humanity. While you feel so many things - some amazing, some terrible - you realize that this is what living is all about. It's the good and the bad. It's the pretty and the ugly. It's the lightness and the weight. It's the exhaustive list of additional dualities of which we habitually place ourselves somewhere in the spectrum.

When my thoughts are at their cloudiest or my raison d'être seems indistinguishable, there is only one thing I can do: hope. I need to hope that everything I'm experiencing now will make sense later. I need to hope that everyone back home still loves me and hasn't entirely forgotten about me. I need to hope that the choice I've made to blow three years of savings on a trip around the world will pay off in intangible ways as it certainly won't bring about physical assets save for a slender, tanned frame. Most importantly, I need to keep my faith in humanity. I need to trust people are who they say they are, that they actually want to help when they offer to and, without putting myself in a dangerous situation, presume positive intent.

Up until this point I can't fathom how blessed I have been by those I've encountered along the way. They are the ones that carry me through. No matter where I go and who I meet, people are there to help me, they want me to find my way, they want me to enjoy my stay and they want to hear about who I am and what I'm about. And even though at times it feels like I'm recycling the same travel itinerary incessantly and investing in relationships today that will be over tomorrow, I hold out hope that life is better when surrounded by new friends. I hold out hope that human diversity should be a blessing not a curse. And I hold out hope that I will continue to be accepted by those I encounter even if I look like the BFG who lost his razor.

Faith in people. At the end of the day it's all we have. And right now, I'm at the mercy of this truth. As I prepare to fly to Bangkok on Wednesday, I'm filled with a cocktail of apprehension and excitement about how different the culture will be. When all our usual surroundings have disappeared into another plane-winged sunset, we must turn to the people around us and trust that our common humanity will be the link that connects us in the face of our differences.

david.

The feats of mankind are limited only by our imagination. As Elon Musk and his crew sent a damn car into space last week, the feeling that the future is here has never been more apparent. But has the future always been here? 

Wandering through Rome and Florence the past two weeks has made me realize how incredible human advancements have been over the past several thousand years. When I stare at the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore or any number of classic structures, I am staring at a paragon of creation. These buildings, conceived and built with inconceivably fewer resources than we have today, just leave you in a state of wonderment and awe as you attempt to process just how they did it.

If you asked me to immediately summon words to describe mankind 1000 years ago, they would be ones like "carnal", "conquer-driven" or "provincial". To my own dismay, I don't tend to give credit where credit is due. I just get caught up in ideas ingrained in my brain courtesy of my history teachers; thoughts of constant warfare, social ordinances, the mandated repression or utter lack thereof. I foolishly assume that because it was so long ago, they knew very little about the world around them and how things really worked. But despite their belief that the earth was flat or in a geocentric view of the universe, they did know an incomprehensibly large amount about applied mathematics, geometry, architecture, materials, etc. I just wonder if they realized just how influential their structures would be and for how long they'd be adored. 

This feeling of sheer awe catapulted to new heights while bearing witness to one particular work of art: Michelangelo's David. I can legitimately say that I've never been so taken by a single creation in my 27 years. 517 years ago, a 26 year old took a hunk of marble that had been sitting outside and extracted one of the world's most famous sculptures. 

Sculpture in general blows my mind. To take a large hunk of earth and work backwards to remove the excess material leaving just the components you desire, is tough to wrap my head around. But to evoke from the marble one of the most graceful (and disturbingly accurate) depictions of man, is just miraculous. 

Any art enthusiast will tell you that seeing a work of art in person trumps any photographic representation of it. But there's something to be said about the energy of a piece. A true work of art captures the essence of its creator and allows the latter to speak through the former for as long as the piece is beheld. In a magnum opus, an influential artist has not just created a lasting piece, they have secured their immortality and through it, I believe, kept a piece of their soul on display for all to see. 

As soon as I walked into the hallway where David stands, I felt his presence. I first tried to admire some of the other art on the walls before walking up to where he stood, but it was useless. He beckoned me forth. And I, swept away by his charm, proceeded. 

Now to appreciate beauty is simple. But to be vulnerable to beauty is not. To let the power of beauty wash over you, cleanse you and command you requires a degree of willingness that takes time and energy. But every once in awhile we come across an object that strips us of our guard and demands to affect us. David - the accurateness of his anatomy, the dynamic energy of his contrapposto, the promise of a shephard boy who will soon slay a great warrior and become king - all of this just grabs hold of your being and refuses to let go.

The Pilgrimage

I haven't written here in awhile. I've generally been spending more time traveling with friends and less time traveling alone which has allotted less headspace for this type of writing. But I thought it high time to update you on the latest in a series of adventures, the Camino de Santiago.

One week ago I had no idea I'd be tackling a 100km walk across the vast Spanish countryside. But when I found out about this incredibly well-groomed, clearly-marked and heavily EU funded walking path called a "Camino" that retraces St. James' pilgrimage through the rural parts of Northwestern Spain, I quickly jumped at the opportunity. What's more is there's several different Caminos, some of which even start in France and make their way across Spain, all sharing the destination of Santiago. A traveler need only choose their starting point and their resting points along the way and they have the signs to guide them there.

The catch? Most people do this walk during the spring and summer months. And by most I mean almost everyone. It's the dead of winter here in Spain ("dead" being a strong term as it feels similar to Boston's late October weather) but I had all my wet weather hiking gear from the Patagonia treks and as all the trails are open year round I knew all I really needed to make it happen was an adventurous mindset. After consulting a few local friends on the best route to take and packing essentials, I jumped on a train on Monday morning with a small pack on my back and set out to walk 100 kilometers in four days.

What in particular drew me to the idea of walking the Camino? Well, the groomed paths meant I would be okay walking alone. And the older I get, the more I enjoy my time alone in nature and understand how sacred it is. What a gift in today's world to spend time in nature, with just your thoughts to tumble out in any way they choose. Life becomes simple as the list of needs is reduced from 40 at any given moment to three - eat, drink and find shelter. I also have been having a more difficult time feeling rooted and connected lately. Perhaps the months upon months of constantly moving around is finally taking its toll. I knew that taking meditative time in nature and particularly time in motion (look at this Libra processing through motion!) would help me feel grounded again and assist in bringing stillness to my recently frenzied thoughts. Lastly, the walking trails wind through tiny countryside towns and rural areas which means I'd be seeing parts of Spain I otherwise wouldn't.

I jumped on a train and a bus on Monday morning and touched down in Lugo, a historic town surrounded by a two kilometer Roman wall, the oldest in Europe. I was quite frazzled from the outset because I realized just how remote I was and had no idea where the trail started or where to pick up my "passport" (a small booklet that you get stamped at each place you stay as proof of your journey which serves to get you a discount at hostels along the way and ultimately a certificate of completion at the end of the journey). I really had jumped into this thing headfirst. And with it already being 12:30, I only had about six hours of daylight to make it to my first destination, which sat more than 23 kilometers away. After several botched verbal exchanges with locals, I procured my passport at the cathedral, found the trailhead and was on my way.

After thirty minutes on the trail, my anxieties were spurred by just how dead the trail was. It became startlingly clear to me that nearly everything along the way (bars, cafes, privately-run hostels) would be closed. The trail then took me out of the city along the river and into the countryside. Although still slightly apprehensive about the whole undertaking, I began to feel the assured alleviation of nature. I felt the adrenaline of an adventurer. I felt the purpose of an explorer. And I felt the embrace of the journey.

A few hours and many cows later, I was still several kilometers from my destination and with the sun looming close to the horizon, I became worried. In a tiny village on the outskirt of some remote mills, I found an open restroom. Inside I ran into a fellow pilgrim who told me this was the only place to sleep for the next several hours and I obviously decided to stay the night there. The only problem? I had no food...

I again felt the mercy and grace of the Camino when the pilgrim, who introduced herself as Charlotte, and her boyfriend Stefan, offered me a portion of their dinner. I truly had no idea there would be no way to get food along the trail and I told them I was forever indebted to them. As they were the only other people staying in the Alburgue (hostel) that night, I honestly don't know what I would have done without them. We became quick friends and they told me all about their travels so far and how they had started in Oviedo with a two week journey ahead of them. I consider that couple to be my guardian angels and without them sharing their food, who knows how I would have made it through the next leg of the journey. They even offered me an orange for breakfast. It's these moments of traveling that rejuvenate your faith in humankind.

I started on the trail the next morning at daybreak knowing that I had to keep moving if I were to reach my next destination before my body realized how hungry it was. I was feeling somewhat satiated from the orange and nuts I had scrounged. Two hours later the mood shifted when I came across an unfortunate sight - the next town that I had banked on for food, was completely shut down.

I took a moment, cursed under my breath and did the thing one does when one runs out of options. You tell yourself you do the only thing you can do in that moment, which is to just keep moving forward. Despite the relentless rain pelting my face that would persist throughout the remainder of the day and an outfit so wet that avoiding puddles no longer mattered, I put my head down and placed one foot in front of the other. At that very lowest moment, I heard a rustle in the roadside bushes and a small furry friend jumped out from behind a small thicket. He capered over to me, licked my arm and actually managed to bring a smile to my face. Although the town was totally deserted and there was not a person in sight, this little doggy shepherded me through the town. It was almost as if he were telling me to follow him, to just keep moving, to keep the faith and trust that I will reach the next destination.

My wet companion walked me to the edge of his town and, with the assuredness of one who knows they have accomplished their mission, briskly about-faced and skedaddled the other way. Inexplicably, and although light-headed from hunger and fatigue, I knew everything was going to be okay. I continued along my way, found a small spring from which to drink and made my way the two remaining hours to Melide where I found a thriving town and made myself a feast consisting of six eggs, a pack of bacon, a baguette, five carrots, four potatoes, a stalk of broccoli, a can of olives, a bag of cheese, a liter of milk and a bag of cookies. I felt human again.

After that period of wilderness testing, it was smooth sailing. The following day, the skies cleared and as I observed the sunrise from a hilltop cemetery on the outskirts of town, I knew the worst was now behind me. I was finally able to find my perfect walking pace, I folded my hands behind my back in the moving posture of deep contemplation and my thoughts unraveled into a grand tapestry of introspection and insight.

On the fourth day, with aching legs and the inability to walk down stairs one at a time like an able-bodied human (I suppose I had walked 2.5 marathons by this point), the grafitti-laden signposts along the trail encouraged me. I felt the history of the trail. I felt the thousands of pilgrims who had also made this journey. I felt like I had achieved something larger than myself.

When I finally arrived into Santiago and beheld the Cathedral tower alongside the faint sound of bouncing bagpipes, there was no grand celebration. The city gates did not open wide for me. Citizens did not bathe me in palm branches. There were no harald trumpeters. There was just the inward warmth of accomplishment setting deeply into my chest and the quiet adoration that comes with the completion of a trying journey.

Takeaways from South America

Two months gone by in South America. It's hard to believe.

Tomorrow I leave the continent for the less-warm pastures of Europe for the next two months of the journey. It's unbelievable to think this trip is already one third over. But hot damn have I learned a great deal about traveling, the cultures I've had the privilege to experience and myself. In this post I'll share some of my biggest takeaways and aim to share why this first segment of the journey has been so powerful. Oh, also, Merry Christmas!

Diversity is a Beautiful Thing

Every day of travel, I'm blown away by how many people there are in this world, how many perspectives exist and how many different ways a life can be lived. Every unique organism contributes their own energy which shapes their experience and influences everything around them. This lofty sociological/spiritual lens gets refocused and retooled every day and continues to blow my mind in all the right ways.

Humans are these walking strokes of paint that can glow red with anger, blue with misery, orange with energy, purple with passion, yellow with hunger, pink with possibility and thousands more colors representing thousands more emotions at any moment. All of these strokes can be smeared together in an exponentially large number of ways. And the brushes that paint these strokes - family, work, culture, upbringing, expectation, customs - vary from place to place and from person to person. And while we oftentimes reduce other people to the lowest common denominator of relation or disposition in order to comprehend more efficiently, every once in awhile we need to be reminded that every one of us is the way we are for a reason and, within the limits of our own realities, can change shapes and colors in an endless number of ways each and every day.

Sure it would be easier to live in a world in which every person and emotion fell into a nice little box with a proper shape and size. But the more of the world I see, the more I realize that humans are perfectly messy creatures that refuse to be contained and whose beauty can only be experienced by realizing their potential rather and embracing their diversity. And although the differences that make us who we are make the world more complicated, it's these differences that make the world more colorful.

You Have to Cut Yourself Some Slack

There have been a countless number of times in the past two months where I've beaten myself up. It happens often when I make a choice and then realize soon after there was a better choice I could have made. This most often happens with monetary expenditures - I'll buy food then realize there was a cheaper option that would have been better, I buy a gift then realize there's the same object for half the price next door, I only have one day left in the country and I run out of cash but still have to pay for some items in cash so I have to withdraw money and take the hit of the foreign client withdrawal fees. Money aside, I'll beat myself up for taking the wrong mode of transport to a destination, I'll beat myself up for failing to use the proper Spanish word I know I knew but didn't realize I knew it until after the conversation ended. I'll beat myself up for not being more social on Christmas Eve when I know it would have made me less homesick and sad. These are just some of the ways in which I've beaten myself up.

I've also been beaten up. I've encountered natives that stare at me with a look of utter contempt as soon as I set foot in a building. I've had employees in grocery stores and cafes give me zero lenience with the language barrier and when I don't understand something they say, they'll just repeat the same three words I don't understand louder and more slowly, which doesn't help anybody. I've had tons of people laugh at me for looking stupid while I attempt something that to them is so simple, like taking a number at the deli or paying the proper bus fare.

In the first month, when any of the aforementioned unpleasantries would befall me, my instinct would be combative - either indignation at myself for my foolishness or contempt for the other for their lack of grace. But after the first month of my travels, I began to learn something incredibly important - this shit happens. It happens everyday and will continue to happen. I am an outsider in a foreign country trying desperately to learn the proper modes of conduct. There are SO many variables that are outside of my control. But there are some variables that are under my control. I can be more patient with myself. I can have more grace with myself. I can forgive myself. And I can just simply cut myself some slack and move on instead of dwelling on my mistakes.

In relation to the other, again I can control some variables. When I accidentally call the wrong floor in the elevator because I think the ground floor is the first floor and it's actually a floor below that and there's that awkward moment where the door opens on the first floor and everyone stares at me because I don't get out, I can at that moment laugh. I can at that moment shrug. I can at that moment apologize and make a silly face. While others will continue to judge me, I can at least attempt to show them that I'm aware of my own shortcomings and that I'm working on it.

While the above paragraphs could read as a diatribe, I don't mean them to be. I also don't want them to be interpreted as complaints. I try to keep this blog insightful and positive where possible. But this is probably the realest issue I've faced and one that I must continue to work on over the next several months of travel. And I think we could all use the reminder that, despite the different circumstances, we all need to have grace with ourselves, we need to be patient with ourselves and we need to remember that we are humans that never have the full picture and always make mistakes. And that is okay.

Keep An Open Mind

I think more often than not, we get in our own way more than other people get in ours. Expectations, fears, inhibitions, routines, norms - they all dictate our behavior and limit our perceived scope of possibility. We exist inside systems that largely dictate our behavior and the lens with which we perceive the world. We will build up ideas in our own heads of the way things should be and generate expectations for ourselves and others that oftentimes keep us from fulfillment.

When you're thrown into a world where everything - the people, the places, the food, the norms - are radically different from what you're used to, there are two ways people react.

The first way is you cling to what you know and what you think is "right" based on your background and confront the world keeping those ideals in tact. You filter anything that comes your way with an immovable bias and your provincial outlook on life means you miss so much. While the genuineness of this approach is somewhat admirable in spirit, this way of going is futile and results in more conflict than harmony.

The second way is you realize you have a specific background, which means you will automatically perceive the world from a certain perspective. Keeping that in mind, you realize your way of living is but one in a billion and through opening your mind to new possibilities, you feel more fully, are affected more intensely and are moved more quickly. Your pursuit then is not validating your own worldview but understanding where your worldview fits in to the larger picture and, much like an art collector, investing in pieces that represent your journey, amassing a collection that speaks to where you've been and who you've become. This approach strives for enlightenment and through lessening the presence of the self, keep us more in tune with the world.

Needless to say, my goal on this journey is to lead with the latter approach. While by no means perfect, every day I feel myself getting better at opening up, allowing vulnerability, questioning my own reality and experiencing life more fully. It's been messy but all great things in life are.

I trust Europe and, after that, Southeast Asia will both continue to kick my ass and mess with my perspective. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Onward ho!