travel

I’ll Take My Path, You Take Yours

/ Sloan / 3 Comments

Yupp. In the last two decades I have lived in four countries, 8 states, and 12 cities. Hell, in the past 4 years I’ve moved 5 times and am currently in limbo in my mother’s spare bedroom. It’s pretty awesome eating her food, walking her poodle and having drinks at the yacht club every Wednesday and sailing every weekend. It is, it’s awesome, really…sorta. I mean, it’s cool guys…I swear.

            We all, (by we I mean my friends who have followed my adventures,) notice a pattern of WITWIS (where in the world is Sloan?) People don’t understand why I can’t stay put, why I move, why I jump off and go to Thailand for 8 months and fuck around. I’m getting to the point where I realize it’s okay to say why not? I’m happy I’m not married and popping out babies. (that’s great if you are and that’s where you want to be, but I don’t)

            In a convo with my favorite record store owner yesterday, he reminded me that I’m young and it’s okay to be experiencing these things. Hell, we can’t take it with us so let’s do it now while we’re nimble, sexy and can drink like a fish three times a week! I want to climb these mountains while my knees still work. I want to soak in the views before I need glasses, I want to eat street food before I have to worry about heart burn, I want to stay in gross, dingy but cheap hostels so that my money can be spent on my next bus ticket to god-knows-where.

 

I’m told on a daily basis both sides of this story. The side that tells me I need to settle down and figure shit out, and the side that tells me that it’s okay to not know. I don’t believe either side. I don’t know who to listen to. When I’ve found myself in this position before, the position of feeling like I need to find permission within my community, that’s when I’ve gotten myself in trouble. It’s when I listen to my heart and do things the way that I want to do them, that’s when I feel the best. So let’s all go out and get rad tattoos, see something awesome and experience life the way we want to experience it.

 

So that’s what I’m doing, anyway.

 

Said tattoo

Said tattoo

 

Said poodle

Said poodle

 

Favorite Moment: Vietnam

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

I don’t know if I screamed before I crawled on my bleeding knees through the dust to turn the key of the fallen motorbike. Nothing, but a bit of my pride, hurt at that moment.

A Vietnamese man grabbed my hand, while another propped the motorbike back up on its kickstand. He led to me a water tank, gave me soap and a bucket and motioned for me to wash the dust off of myself—he disappeared into a near by hut.

My friend had yelled Oh my god! after the fall. She watched it, it could have been worse, but we were still not in a good position. Vulnerable. She watched him prop up the bike and he signaled for her to join him to drink something.

The man returned with a tin of Tiger Balm, he slathered my cuts with the medicated cream, but only after he patted my legs, arms and hand dry with a clean cloth. Kindness. He placed the tin in my palm and closed my hand, meaning that this was for me to keep. Generosity.

 

He led me to where my friend was drinking green tea and playing a game of language barrier charades with another Vietnamese man, this was a game we had both mastered after months of being expats. After many rounds we won, and had communicated the story of the broken bike. The Vietnamese, mechanical motorbike geniuses, took 15 minutes and had solved the problem. Go-getters. They asked for nothing in return and sent us on our way.

This was my favorite Vietnamese moment.

 

CIMG1262

De ja vu

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

I miss it.

 

I miss missing this.

 

When I got on the plane I let out a sigh of relief. It’s over. I did it. I had taught English, backpacked solo and now I was on the last leg of this journey. Home.

 

I have arrived.

 

I have arrived to my life exactly one year ago. And this de ja vu fact terrifies me.

 

I changed while I was gone, like many travelers do. I saw, did, heard and experienced things that I never imagined I was capable of. Stories will go untold on this blog, untold to my mother, never to be retold again—they will remain alive in my memory only to be relived dancing in my dreams of When I was in…

 

I miss missing this place and I’m not sure what that means.