I am not afraid
Of anything in this world
There’s nothing you can throw at me
That I haven’t already heard
I’m just trying to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company
– U2
I’m not sure why this is occurring, but at 33 years old I am struck by the re-realization that I am happiest when traveling. I first figured this out at age 16 when I was fortuitously abandoned by my bizarre French host sister and found myself suddenly navigating the expanses of Paris on my own.
“Hey, I really like this!” was my epiphany as I walked from the Javel Metro in a quest to find the Hotel Nikko and my airline pilot father. Unbeknownst to me, he was on the other side of town, running very late and frantically trying to put a location on his wandering daughter at our original meeting spot. As the day wore on, it didn’t look like this impromptu reunion was going to happen. After all, this intersection was being attempted during the high tech age of beepers – so means of communication and coordination were still competing with the carrier pigeon.
But this story does produce a happy ending; a full day of missed connections finally found us running into one another in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral:
This is still without a doubt the best memory of my life.
Man, I look young….I didn’t feel that way though!
So let’s leave Amnesia Lane and return to Rua Jardim Do Regedor…
Early Monday morning found me flying back to Dakar from Budapest. Wednesday produced a spontaneous plane ticket purchase, and now it’s Friday and I’m in Lisbon for the weekend. November has turned out to be a crucial month of morale calibration for Megan.
I am sitting here in my ultra-mod hotel, a place that oozes a bizarre devotion to its namesake (cat with boobs). Somehow, all of this is right up my alley.
Today I managed a full day of sightseeing that kicked off as soon as I completed my overnight escape journey from the African continent. I’ll post pics later, but for now I’m tired and just want to skip ahead. My evening wrapped up with an opportunity to reconnect with my friend Ana, the only Portuguese person in the world that I know. She’s also someone who I literally haven’t seen or heard from in fifteen years (thank you Google!).
I don’t think that neither of us have changed much. Except maybe now I’m wearing a jacket that fits.
Ana was an exchange student at my local high school the year after I got back from France (my senior year). We got along pretty well, probably because we shared common “international” experiences and had a similar low-key mode of living. I believe I shot her a random e-mail mid-week that essentially went like this:
“Hey person who I haven’t seen in over a decade! Is this really you and if so, do you remember me? If so, I am going to be in your country in a few days- wanna meet up?”
And guess what? It worked!
Fortune favors the bold.
All these years later, it was great to reconnect with someone like Ana after executing a randomly-scheduled trip that promised nothing but has already yielded so much. It didn’t surprise me that we still found so many things to talk about, and indeed I was thankful that her English was every bit as perfect as mine- because that meant less Portuguese for me to attempt as we sat, ate and chatted until 1am.
So I remember once again that this is the kind of living that Megan was created for- not the kind that has me sitting in the air-conditioned paradise of dusty Dakar. I need to keep this basic truth in mind the next time I have delusions of wanting to return to the fleet simply because I am feeling uninspired. The world is just too big, and no opportunity can be wasted.
