I’m trying to find the words to describe my travels. I want to write about this prolonged journey I’m on, with no foreseeable end in sight. I want to talk about how stripping away the creature comforts of home feels a bit like floating. How the constant motion feels something like putting down shallow roots everywhere — stringy and white, they spread out like a giant web of moss. I want to write about the paradox I notice and which becomes more and more apparent with each new location: how the bigness of a culture hits you first and foremost, but how in the end, the sameness we share is what you’re left with. And how that sameness rings softly as you walk along the streets or stare at people passing by, whispering, it’s all the same, it’s the subtleties that are different. I want to comment on how beautiful those subtleties are. How they spin and wind themselves softly around and through a place, weaving a textured impression, the feel of which will stick with you far more than the names of buildings or the sounds of phrases. I want to share all of these things in a way that feels cohesive and meaningful. Like it holds some weight and is not just some more un-substantive fluff sent out into the ether. But that weight feels hard to find when the impressions come in momentary fragments and the takeaway messages always out of grasp. And maybe the answer to why this is is obvious. There are no summations to be made. When you’re constantly on the road, the spool keeps unwinding. It all streams past like the blurred green passing outside my window. I’m like a sponge that keeps soaking it all up, full yet porous with holes. The gaps between observation and conclusion. I squeeze the sponge and let it all pour through, only to be re-absorbed again. These are the words I strive to say, in the form of the ones I can manage to collect for now. An account of the dust as I wait for it to settle into something more complete, definitive, a message, perhaps, revealed through the reaming.