Running and hiding and traveling

on living a selfish life

After traveling alone for a while, you forget what it’s like to be needed, really needed that is. To be part of a something that needs you like you are oxygen in its lungs. I go places and trade my sweat for a bed and a meal, but I am not really needed. It has already been discussed that I will be out the door as swiftly as I came in.

Sometimes, for a second, you forget that someone back home might need you, might miss you. Maybe, in reality, for that second you’re really just forgetting about them, because you are so far away that home feels like a past life, one which has begun to fade.

I sometimes feel the guilt of running away catching up to me. Traveling alone is supposed to be a time for self-discovery and introspection, to explore the inner walls of your mind, to uncover every nook and cranny of what makes you tick. In truth, it’s a lot of time to be spent indoors, and I’m afraid self-discovery is starting to make me a little selfish. Lately, it’s been hard not to mistake traveling with running away. Lately, it’s begun to feel more like the latter. After chasing what you want, you forget about the stem that tethers you to home. You are a runner, an offshoot looking to sprout roots in new soil, but you can not survive without the nourishment of your mother.

The days I don’t work come in pairs. It’s in those two of days, when the hours feel longer than they should, that I feel the most like I’m running away. When I’ve dragged out the time across park benches and coffee shops under the covers of books that I wonder what I’m really doing here. I play games to pass the time. Can this coffee last the whole day?

Books I’ve read abroad: a testament to the amount of time on my hands.

It is a privilege to be so alone sometimes. To have two days that ask me for nothing but to walk and wait in silence, and I fill them with just that. Strolls and silence. It is a privilege to cave in. To, when my eyes grow heavy and sluggish, let myself fall asleep under the weight of the still blue sky. Even when the sun kisses the earth, even then, going home is optional. Really, all I’m waiting for is a gentle tug in my stomach that’ll lift me to my feet, telling me it’s time to find some warm bowl to bury myself in.

It is a privilege to let my clothes lay strewn across the bed. It is a privilege to let my things lay where I unpack them. To leave blankets I borrow tangled in heaps after I crawl out of bed. To stretch my limbs into every corner of the mat and roll around at night, because the days I will sleep alone will be many many more. To leave shirts stacked on top of pants on top of socks next to books. To leave it all untidied because by the time I get around to it will be the month’s end, and I will be gone by then.

When you are running away you might think the grass you see is as green as the kind you see in dreams, however, you will be surprised to find that it’s been sucked dry by the scorching sun. When you stop by you may find it is not so green after all, but lifeless grass lay rampant across the surface. If you try to rest, it will reach through the weaves in your cotton shirt, pricking the skin on your back. It is lacking water and nutrition. This is no place to lay down.

Heavy-handed patriarchs and klazomaniac patrons welcome me backstage to remind me that I am nothing but a visitor in their dominion. I have a guest pass that allows me to tiptoe around eggshells, but it does not come with a loud enough voice. It does not come with the spine required to speak. I am a welcome visitor in these places, but my opinion is not. No, I am not a visitor. I am free labor, and my mattress rests on top of eggshells. So again, I stay silent, and its echos ring louder than ever in my ears. How does one grow branches that provide shade when they do not even have roots? They hand me cans of worms I can only stow away in my bag. It is a privilege to hide away in my palace of silence. Silence is a friend I have long grown comfortable with, and I find solace in its embrace.

Running away is the gluttonous act of sinking your teeth into ripe fruit picked from a tree while others weigh their baskets at the counter. Thoughts of the end enter my mind and the feeling resurfaces, the same one from the beginning. That feeling that said, “Run away!” which now whispers, “Keep running!” Maybe if I do, I can find the tree that satisfaction grows on. Maybe when its saccharine juice has collected underneath my chin, I’ll know if this was a fruit grown for humans, if it’s colors were indicative of the sweet nectar, or if they were just a warning. I feel the need to keep running, but for me this self-serving is a life half-lived. But when she hands me a swollen berry, wrapped in red to the very tip, seeds ready to jump away from the skin, I take it willingly.