black and white

Farewell sweet 2014

A year of love and heartbreak. A year of pain and suffering. A year of embracing the unkown.

Thanks for the memories 2014.

I’m so thankful a new year is finally here.

On loving and losing

This past week has been a week that I will never forget.

I have not known what to do with myself but write. The only thing I can do now is to stop and reflect and remember.

On Thursday, I received a call that shook my life and left me heartbroken.

The world lost Tom a week ago today.

We lost someone who was full of laughter, who was ready and willing to accept any challenge, and who was kind beyond every expectation. He gave freely and loved others well.

He has long been a bright star in my sky and I am forever grateful to have known him. We first met in New Zealand, traveled parts of Nepal together, and in May, he traveled to NC to see and experience the world I live in here.

The only thing I have been able to take heart in in these hard times is knowing this–

I knowing me today, you know Tom. You know the person who helped shape me into the person I am today.

I have memories and stories that will continue to live and be shared forever. And, they are more precious now than ever.

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”- Anne Lamott

Black and white and all that’s right

Certain days from this summer stand out more than others.

My first full day at Inle Lake is certainly one of those memorable days. I hopped on a boat and explored until my eyes were tired and overwhelmed by beauty.

I’m glad places like this exist.

On originality and finding new inspirations

The other day I posted this photo and it got me thinking about just how true it is.

If you want an uncomplicated and straightforward life, don’t travel.

Travel, I find complicates everything. It makes you question all, makes you want to live in a bold new way, and makes you want to make lasting changes. If ever I feel that I’m stuck or in need of new inspirations, I travel. Travel ruined me and ruined me at a young-ish age, but its something I wouldn’t ever want to change or take back.

Travel doesn’t have to be far or involve multiple flights. Just the act of moving can become a sort of mediation and a way to clear the clutter from my mind.

These days, I have found that I find inspiration in the simplest things. I haven’t been able to sleep through the night in over a month because I lie wide-eyed in bed and start thinking of all the things, projects, people, etc.

I want to see and experience and touch all of it and I don’t want it to stop after these three months of summer traveling.

Over the past several years of my life, this has become a sort of routine –> find something, pack a backpack, leave for Asia for three months (sometimes more), get overly inspired, return home –> repeat.

For now, when I think of the future, it involves living much as I am now –> New languages, sights, sounds, tastes, and nights spent not sleeping (solely because I’m just too excited to go to bed). After all these years of traveling and living like this I was afraid that this summer would finally break me, I’d be done with it, and want to embrace the uncomplicated. If anything, the opposite has been true and Burma has reminded me once again of how much I love this life and this style of living.

“I don’t believe in originality. You take inspiration from whatever moves you and you find your voice in those things.” – Tim Walker

I’d give up a good night’s sleep and fast internet any day if it meant I could feel this alive and this much like myself.

Travel notes –> the in-between places

I often find when I travel between two places, I’m more distracted by all the in-between places I’m passing through than my final destination. I’m often not too upset when something goes wrong in my original travel plan because I know that in the end, either an adventure will come of it or I will get the chance to discover a new place.

For example, the other night while I was traveling –> Bangkok –> Chumphon station –> bus –> ferry –> Koh Tao, I wanted to stay in Chumphon longer, wanted to stop at every train station and see what that town was like, etc.

I guess, I’m just easily distracted, but I feel this way most everywhere I go.

Traveling by train in Thailand is such a pleasant experience. Up to this point, most of my train experiences have been in Europe or India (*the two extremes of train travel), and so far, I think I choose Thailand. My India train experiences have certainly prepared me for a good deal in life and even though I have oddly grown to love traveling by train in India, I’ve found in Thailand, I can relax, breathe deeply, and sleep for more than an hour without being interrupted!