It is hard not to ask: what next?
At first, when we started this trip (even during the planning months) the answer to the question, what next? Where will you go, what will you do after the road trip? Was easy. I do not know. We called it the 2017 USA Road Trip, imagining a year on the road. But who knows? This maybe the beginning of a never ending road trip. Or we might stop. Who knows?
Sometimes, i have fantasies of a spacious open breezy sun flooded house by a meadow on the mountain with a body of water in the near horizon with trees constantly in bloom/heavy with fruit and birds chirping and the possibility of wildlife is only the night away with friends and wines and fresh breads and cheeses and lots of time to walk and read.
Sometimes, i feel i cannot settle down just yet, this is just the beginning. Finally! Now, is the time to go for that year in Turkey after all, that year learning Spanish, that year hiking, that year visiting friends (meet my oldest friend’s newborn), that year in silence writing. Wander, lighter, with less fear in my joints and relocate my instincts.
I want to travel light with as little as possible. I find myself searching the net for smart packing, thinking for hours as how to pack the basic minimum, i have started a list: the pair of the perfect jeans (if located), and another pair of pants, something for cozy time? And a skirt for looking smart? A bunch of t-shirts and at least one smart top, a top to keep warm (a nice cotton hoodie). Warm and light socks, two shoes, and slippers, bras, a jacket. Oh and contact lenses+saline solution+moisturizer+toothbrush+paste+soap+painkiller. All advice/experience sharing welcome. Oh and my coffee maker.
A station: arriving without a worry to my sister’s where i sleep as much as i like and watch tv for as long as i like and eat everything. Alma makes home and it is open for me, in some ways an extension of my mother’s home in Amman. Always welcome. How precious it is to feel at home in a big wild world of hunger and thirst (not my hunger nor my thirst, but the more i travel, the less i take a home, a bite, and rest for granted and the more i appreciate them). She travels (how is it that the trip that causes most anxiety for an immigrant is the trip home?), and i spend some time with rocca the cat, as much as she allows for, getting reacquainted with each other. Some family members are not as excited to see you as others.
I have a thin black notebook, Lil gave it to me, with handwritten names of amman to san francisco flora. I carry the notebook with me at all times (most times) and i try here to process some of my thoughts and i have been working on working with the notion: I want to be wild.
I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild.I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild.I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild. I want to be wild.
I maybe on the road for a while. A literal translation of the journey of life.
