I transport myself back one month ago today. I am in Seville, standing at a bus stop as normally as I used to wait for the 409 to school, my backpack just super-sized; the creased leaves of its textbooks now replaced with the entwined ball of sleeves and leggings moulded into it over many a rushed exit. Its pockets are still stuffed with artsy fartsy cafe postcards, only- one is in Deutsch, the other in Français, and the rest in Español. I am smiling at the ground. The last two months manage to squeeze themselves into minutes, and the polaroids of rivers, lanes, buildings, market stalls, bars, restaurants, hostels and mostly, people’s faces, ebb along with the traffic. I feel my feet touch the ground and almost need to stop myself from smiling out loud (SOL-ing?) when I remember I’m finally here, in that big old Europe place, and ever so much more finally, here, in the South of Spain.
—-
That was the last day of my first significant bout of independent travel. The last few hours before I found myself flown back to London, where the degree dropped twenty times and my backpack and I sat in the corner of a living room giving each other acknowledging looks of social awkwardness as we quietly observed the chatter between close friends.
It was strange. Despite my warm reception, I couldn’t shake the gloom that crept over me. As if the frost had found secret pores in which to infiltrate my emotional senses. The nomadic fire was snuffed. It really did feel like I had just been whisked back to Kansas. I knew I had to snap out of it. I made an effort to insert myself back into society. I spoke. I laughed. I ate dinner. I slept. But the hunger for my humble version of Oz was incessant.
—-
It’s funny how inconsistently time and capacity work.
Here I sit, a month later and my memory to day ratio has decreased dramatically. No longer do I rush out in hopes to not waste the hours I could be using to see this and this (and God forbid I miss THAT) like a freshly painted machine, programmed solely to See and Do and Savour.
Instead, I lurk around a house that is not my own, hiding from the cold and forming an addiction to Friends’ Walls. I scroll routinely through the same handful of jobs on the Internet that the Christmas period cares to offer. I am tormented by a chest infection which has decided to take over my will to function physically not to mention ability to speak. I’m experiencing real, heart-wrenching homesickness for the first time. I’m like a cold little vegetable.
Kris the Frozen Broccoli.
What does one call this half-arsed state of mine? It’s not travelling, though I’m overseas. It’s not living abroad, because I haven’t set up my life here yet. I guess upon embarking on this lone adventure I’d prepared myself for many things- stagnancy just wasn’t one of them. I’m coming to accept it as one of those underrated yet essential ingredients in everything good. Like the naked string between two pearls. Or the queue before an awesome funpark ride. Or the break before the crescendo of a classic rock ballad.
All I know is my momentum has been lost for a while now and I need to get it back. So New Year, I ask of you one tiny but vital thing:
Move me again?
