It’s officially been 11 months on the road, and here are some of the highlights of what i didn’t miss:
1- waking up to the same loud construction sounds in the city, or car honking,
2- the sound of the neighbor’s pee in the middle of the night, or high-heels going down the stairs five times a
week at seven in the morning,
3- relying on my computer to do “work” and being contained in an apartment,
4- seeing people sleeping on the streets, passing by them and just feeling sorry, and only participating in adding to their misery,
5- wanting to consume all the time,
6- feeling guilty for not doing enough,
7- not being able to feel spaciousness as a matter of fact,
8- not seeing at least three different kinds of animals everyday,
9- the need to drive and drive to be in nature, or nature as a “vacation” destination and not part of the everyday,
10- how conservative and closed we become when we live in one place that sells itself as being liberal for the most non-genuine reasons,
11- how arrogant big city citizens are.
And what i miss
1- brown,
2- knowing who my neighbors are,
3- un-interrupted internet,
4- the smell of my own bedsheets even when i had not changed them for a couple of weeks,
5- not having to search on airbnb, vrbo, craigslist (all online housing websites) and see how greedy people are, and how many own private lakes, bays and oceans,
6- not having to negotiate rent with renters in off seasons,
7- the deep trust my ass feels while sitting on my toilet seat,
8- cooking while not worrying that the smell of fried onions will stick,
9- not wondering about the hair on the blankets,
10- my cat’s love,
11- weekly casual meetings with my friends who live around the corner,
12- holding a book that is mine without worrying to bend its pages,
13- sleeping without having to think where next,
14- sleeping deeply.
disclaimer: i really enjoy making lists. i think i take after my father. In the evenings, chilling, he used to write down some lists (next day to do list, future plans, future dreams, finances) in tiny notebooks. Whenever i traveled, this was what he asked me to get for him as a gift. He is no longer interested in lists. On the road, i buy the $1 tiny notebooks and they come in colors, i keep them with me. A part of it is i know that my father would appreciate (would have appreciated) that, and the other part is that i really love making lists in tiny notebooks. I’ve been making lists since i was very young. In college, i used to exchange letters with my father, i was in Beirut and he was in Amman, and in some of these letters i found that he asked me for lists of what i needed, like if i asked for $200, he would in turn ask for a detailed list of what i planned to do with the $200. Thank you Baba, lists are now a blessing on the road.
