“You should blog about your travels,” she said, staring at me from across table, coffee cup in hand. It was a midday catch-up session and I was talking about an imminent trip to NYC. “Yes,” I thought. Yes. Such an obvious thing that I rarely think to do. Sure, I think of it and have done it a few times before, but it somehow never reaches the top of my blog to-do list.
Maybe it’s because I don’t want to be just another travel blogger. I don’t want to do something unless I can do it well and make it feel original. Or maybe it’s that there are other subjects pressing closer to my heart, the ones I feel I must share for my own sanity and in the hopes that they will resonate with someone else in the great big “out there” of the Internet. Or perhaps it’s just that I often miss the most obvious, common-sense of things as I’m usually too busy getting lost in the twisting, wandering space of my own mind.
Whatever the case may be, I liked my friend’s suggestion to share a little more of the experiences that color my perspective and imbue my writing with the peculiarities that make it an expression of me. So today, I’ll start by sharing a few glimpses into the places I’ve been these past few months, a look at some of the moments that gather like layers, settling and compressing into my core. These are the moments that inevitably come out in my writing, transmuted through time, space and cultivation. I’ll also sprinkle in a few quotes from what I’ve been reading lately — the ones that jumped out at me, made me think or were just dang beautiful. I hope you enjoy this quick peek into my travel world.
“…the sun blazing pale-golden with a pure Arctic light.” – Oliver Sacks, A Leg to Stand On
“One may be said to ‘own’ or ‘possess’ one’s body—at least its limbs and movable parts—by virtue of a constant flow of incoming information, arising ceaselessly, throughout life, from the muscles, joints and tendons. One has oneself, one is oneself, because the body knows itself, confirms itself, at all times, by this sixth sense.” – Oliver Sacks, A Leg to Stand On
“I remind myself, ‘Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.’ (Cribbed from Voltaire) A twenty-minute walk that I do is better than the four-mile run that I don’t do. The imperfect book that gets published is better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer. The dinner party of take-out Chinese food is better than the elegant dinner that I never host.”
-Gretchin Rubin, Happier at Home as quoted in Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly.
“There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day—that is, forget oneself.”- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“We’re always evolving into different versions of ourselves.” – Cheryl Strayed, Dear Sugar Podcast
“Our trajectories on foot—in the public commons—reveal more than simple maps of civility. They offer complex Venn diagrams of the interior lives of whole societies. Mind your step, though. Orderly and robotically friendly sidewalks, for example, may hide cultures of private loneliness. Chaotic and bruising bazaars could mask veiled lives of inner grace and peace. I wish I could say I understand these patterns. Maybe after 20,000 miles, I will. Thanks, Rob.”
-in a comment by Paul Salopek of the Out of Eden Walk (you’re gonna wanna check this out)
If you want to see more of my travels (near and far), follow me on the Instagrams (@esensky).
Where have you been lately? What experiences/words/images/conversations/food/movements/and on and on are you expressing through your art?
