Oh, I wrote this last night when I was trying to get some sleep before my early-morning uni wednesday. It didn’t work, because I kept turning on the light when I had an idea I wanted to write down. It’s all in really bad hand writing too, but that’s nothing new.
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There are times you wonder whether all that travelling was actually good for anything. I mean, sure, experience at travelling certainly helps you when you’re travelling. At least until that point that it becomes the norm and you’d rather not have any experience at all, when rather than noticing the wonderous and unique you begin to pick out the common threads and mundanities of each place. (Airports, for example)
But then, when you’re back bouncing around in the balloon of programs and plans and boredom at home, you think back to a person or a place and suddenly are thrown fully into a memory as clear as day, like a living diorama that you can swoop around in, fast forward, rewind, smell, taste, hear. I open my tea pouch for the first time in a month and pick that one I got in Rome and am first reminded of that time I was sitting there having stolen some hot water and talking about this and that to that person and it was cold and a bit wet but it was still that tea all those mornings ago. And then I think about the store I bought it in, and the walls piled high with sweets and breads and teas, and I walk down the street and I’m in Vatican City. And then I look at my pouch and remember the market I bought that leather in for no apparent reason, and the hotel room I sewed it in as I faced that stained, yellow wall and the pile of bent needles next to me and all the other things that happened there…
… and then I see that TV show where that guy jumps from a steep cliff into the water and it reminds of that time in Croatia I did the same thing, and I see the coke that cost me far too much on the plastic table and I can feel my mind racing against the concrete decision I have just made to jump off and I feel myself stand up, humming gently from my heart pounding so fast, crawl to the edge and think ‘that’s quite high’ and then stand up and think ‘that’s twice as high’ and then I wait all of three seconds and jump! And I fall, the world stretches like spaghetti around me and I awake in a world of bubbles and pop up and swim over and the bandaid falls of my big toe and I climb up to do it again, only it’s so much worse because I just climbed up and really know how high it is this time…
… Or perhaps I recall a face I haven’t seen in a long time and it takes me to that night drinking champagne on the balcony and I feel better than the night before and I’m with some of my family I don’t see too often and life is wonderful and strange and…
… I smile, and I think, quite rightly, that yes, it was all worth it. If a place or a time or a place and a time that I was in and may never or can never return to can be so clear in my mind and bring such a sudden surprise and joy and set off a whole chain of memories like dominoes, then it was worth it.
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