Tag: Travel

I live in the future

On By Elizabeth EndaraIn PoetryLeave a comment

Cambodia and Thailand are 11 hours ahead of home. I live the whole day before the people I love have even woken up. So I wrote this poem about the way I feel here in the future.

I live in the future
And in the future
I lean out of windows
Gazing into the heat
Letting my hair cascade into the past
For my friends to use
As a ladder into my mind

In the future
I go fast
Kicking up the dust in my lungs
And the tuk tuk drivers
Make me feel safer
Than my last love ever could

In the future
My heart is steady
It doesn’t get dressed
Or put on makeup
It simply is fully loved as herself
Warm and beating
Basking in the sun

 

In the future
I am so free
And the whole wide world
Will watch the sunrise alongside me
And the sunrise
For all her heat and struggle
Will let me through the clouds of doubt
And she will hold me close
Letting me love her
In my broken way

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Somewhere I Never Thought I’d Go

On By Elizabeth EndaraIn travelLeave a comment

Writing this on my flight from DC to Tokyo. Isn’t that dreamy? In about 21 hours I will be in Thailand where I will be pushed into the culture, language, religion, and heart of a place that I know next to nothing about.

I’ve had a lot of anxiety leading up to this trip. Life has been so full of all the good and all the bad and all the in between. There is so much new in my life and it has been rubbing up against the old, and that doesn’t really feel that great. I imagine Thailand is going to feel that way too. I’ve never been to East Asia, and honestly, I’ve never wanted to go to East Asia. And yet, here I am.

This feels like the theme of my life lately. Doing things I never wanted to do or never thought I’d have the courage to do. Moving to New York was like that. Going to therapy was like that. Even, in its own way, falling for someone has been like that. And plenty of tiny things that are now part of my daily life are like that. I’m sure there are things like this for all of us, and it’s hard. There have been plenty of times where I refused to leave my apartment, skipped appointments, picked fights, and just generally closed off to anything that felt too different.

My fear is that I will build walls, shut doors, miss opportunities. In this trip to Thailand that is my fear. In my life back home that is my fear.

But I have learned (in therapy and elsewhere) that if I don’t at least attempt it, if I don’t open myself up to a new experience in love and light and adventure, than I am going to miss out. I will grow cold and hard and lonely. In Christianity we often talk about “looking for where God is already at work”. Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hanh would describe this as looking for the light in people, looking for the light in the experience or the moment. And as I’ve been pressing into this thought, I’ve begun to describe this as looking for love that exists around me. In a person’s eyes, in a father and daughter holding hands, in a group of friends laughing.

So I’ve made that my mission for my trip to Thailand, hoping it will become the mission of my life, a habit so engrained within me that it’s as natural as breathing. Each person in this world bears the image of heaven. Each person carries within their spirit pure and holy light. Each person has spaces in his/her heart still capable of giving and receiving love.

I am challenging myself even in this moment on an airplane to Tokyo to look for love. Even when I don’t feel like I carry it within me. Even when my heart is so tired and afraid. Even when I feel lonely and abandoned.

I will look for light and love in the spaces around me, in the people who I see only for a moment.

 

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2016

On By Elizabeth EndaraIn lifeLeave a comment

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I can’t remember what words I’m supposed to use to talk about the past. I can’t remember words about my heart. I can’t remember words about how I feel when I go somewhere new. But let’s try for a moment to remember. This year was more than I ever thought a year could be. I didn’t know I could fit so many different moments inside my body. I live in New York now, but really I could be anywhere. I feel like I am everywhere. Because this year I went everywhere, always always always waiting to come home, and that’s when I found home in my own skin.

The first day of the year started in London with old magic that was wearing out, but the second day I went to Paris for the first time where I found new magic and I moved forward. For real this time. And the year went on like that tired and awake and always moving forward.

I turned 25 and my 25th country was a mountain

I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and I told no one

I got angry in the most righteous way

I burned bridges in the way I do, smiling and praying and filled with peace

I ended a whole life, an entire version of myself ceased to exist

I was brave in the exact way I wanted to be and it broke my heart

I fell in love with the sweetest regret

I didn’t regret it, not a single thing

I moved so many times, carrying everything on my back

I ended up in a city I never wanted to be in but it is exactly where I want to be

I lost people to the wind and I breathe them in every second of every day

I fell to pieces on the bathroom floor on Monday and picked myself up again on Tuesday

I carried on that way for several weeks

I blew over the last cardboard walls of false belief

I turned into love, more and more I turned into love

I held more secrets than usual

I opened my heart more than usual

I was brave and broken and brave again

I am in awe of my heart. How much it let in. How much it let go. How much it changed. This year was hard, ok? And next year will be hard. But it will also be good.

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Photos by my magic friend, Crystal Anne

Write about nothing

On By Elizabeth EndaraIn life1 Comment
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Suhareke, Kosovo

I have so much to say and nothing to say and I don’t know what my life is. But I’m 25 and isn’t that exactly right? I like to write on here because I like to write, and because I like to think that maybe there’s someone who reads this who feels just like me. And so this is a post about nothing really amazing except for a few feelings (except that I think feelings are amazing). But just to sum up: for the last few months, I haven’t really felt like writing. I think that’s because I’ve had too many things to write about and just thinking about it feels overwhelming.

Here is a list of the things I have done since I last wrote:

-traveled to Turkey

-visited a refugee camp on the Macedonian/Serbian border

-hosted my mom and sister in Kosovo

-helped run a summer camp with my NGO

-packed up my entire apartment/life in Kosovo

-said goodbye to a million places and people and things

-traveled to Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Italy with my sister, brother, and sis-in-law

-traveled to Jordan

-returned to America

-said hello to all my friends and family

-unpacked all my stuff

-watched my best friend get married

-packed all my stuff

-moved to New York City

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Ajloun, Jordan
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Atlanta, GA

 

Yeah. I’m not really sure how to sum all that up in words. I have so many feelings about everything that’s happened in the last few months and all those unspoken moments in between. There’s a fullness and an emptiness. It’s heartbreaking and wonderful. I feel simultaneously loved and alone. I’ve been curled up in the fetal position on the floor of my childhood bedroom and I’ve been dancing with my favorite people at my best friend’s wedding. There’s so much room inside the human heart.

All of that leaves me pretty unsure. Unsure about how I feel, unsure about my life, unsure about what to write in this moment at this coffee shop in NYC. I could write about what it’s like to pack up my life in a few suitcases. I could write about returning to places I’ve loved deeply. I could write about the new places I’ve been. I could write about falling in love with people, places, moments and watching my friends fall in love with people, places, moments. I could write about how excited I am about my life. I could write about how scared I am about my life. I could write about sitting on my windowsill in my new home in my new life in New York City. But I don’t think I’ve really leaned into any of that yet. I’m not quite ready to feel the whole weight of it. So for now I’m just going to say that I’m here, feeling what I feel, letting myself be blown by every breeze that passes through. My feet will touch the ground soon, I think. And then I will sit down and write something that makes sense. But until then I will just take deep breaths and go on walks in Central Park and try to remember all the good things that have come and let that heal me from all the bad. There’s so much room inside the human heart.

 

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NYC

Three Cities and a Poem

On By Elizabeth EndaraIn Poetry, travelLeave a comment

 

I recently went traveling through three cities in Eastern Europe and it was magic. Here are some photos and adjectives and a poem I wrote on a train.

 

Bratislava, Slovakia

Alleyways and early mornings

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Vienna, Austria

Palaces and colored lights

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Budapest, Hungary

Glittery views and sunshine

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I walk through cities you have never seen

and may never see.

Palaces are my living room.

 

I make my bed

out of a window sill

and a city skyline.

 

Do you envy me?

Do you wish you saw

everything through my eyes?

 

When I wander

through back alleys made of stones

You are so far from my mind.

 

It is only when I stop moving

that I think it would be nice

if you were here

 

What if you saw

everything through my eyes?

Would you understand then?

 

Instead of beautiful winding roads

I see a maze of bones

and strangers voices whispering through the cracks

 

I walk into my palace living room

and the prison door slams behind me

nothing can get in, I hope

 

I make my bed

in a room full of people who don’t care

I listen to emptiness drip from the ceiling.

 

When I am still

and floating in the sky

I feel the phantom of you in the space next to me

 

If you look through my eyes

you will see yourself

forever walking away down a city street

 

If you see through my eyes

you will see through the ache

and it makes everything more beautiful.

 

Dear California,

On By Elizabeth EndaraIn travelLeave a comment

I woke up this morning with California on my mind, so naturally, I wrote it a letter.

 

Dear California,

You are magic. I bet all the girls tell you that. But it’s true, and I mean it.

I’ve been thinking about the first time I ever saw your Sequoias. I was only eleven or twelve, and it is one of the only things I remember about being that age. I was a small child and there was so much snow that I thought I would disappear into it. But that was nothing compared to how small I felt standing next to the trees. They were impossible, and yet I was looking right at them.

I think one of my favorite things about you is your transience, or my ability to be transient while I’m with you. I can have my pick of landscapes: desert, city, sandy beach, rocky beach, mountains, forests. You have all of it. You’re dusty and massive, quiet and dreamy, minimal and contrasting. I welcome every change of your landscape. It is an echo of the ever-changing nature of my own heart. We are both fickle in our own ways.

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When I was in university, I would sometimes tell people, “I’m from California.” A lie, of course. A nice thing to pretend, at least. At 22, I rented a car and drove up highway 1 in pursuit of clarity and romance. I don’t remember if I got either of those things, but I do remember that I pulled over every fifteen minutes just so I could run to the sea shore and stick my toes in the water.

The last time I was with you, I was heartbroken in my own small way. I stayed with you for a while and let your magic heal me just a little bit. There I was, traveling up highway 1 again, farther this time and not alone. With every turn there was something breathtaking. At times like that you have to be careful and make sure your heart’s still beating. We came to a cold, rocky beach near your northern border and I listened to the ocean flow through me. I explored caves and cliffs. I climbed up and down every rock that I could. And I discovered your redwood forests for the first time. I think you might be hiding fairies in there.

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It’s been almost two years since I’ve seen you. I don’t think about you every day, though maybe I should. But I think about you when it matters, like right now, on a cloudy Thursday. And I think about how we are both living lives of movement, and even with all the dust that shakes up, it’s a beautiful thing.

 

Hope to see you soon,

-ee

 

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Paris

On By Elizabeth EndaraIn travelLeave a comment

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Ah Paris. You really won me over.

I’m going to start by saying something that will make you roll your eyes so hard and think that you cannot relate to me at all: I have never wanted to go to Paris. The only reason I decided to go was because it was on my way home and I wanted to check it off “the list.”

Let me explain.

“Paris is always a good idea,” said Audrey Hepburn, to which I would respond, “sure if you’re thin, rich, white, and own a lot of black clothing.” The movie Midnight in Paris is wonderful, but I couldn’t help but watch it and think how if Owen Wilson’s character was a woman, it would be a much different movie. Think less quiet strolls among twinkling street lamps, and more like Morroccan dudes yelling at you as you power walk to your destination with your hood on and head down.

I’m also just not a huge Ernest Hemingway fan, and he goes around claiming Paris is a “moveable feast.”

I know that you can apply some version of these anecdotes to any number of cities, but I had fastened them all onto Paris; and honestly, I just wasn’t in the mood.

For all of that, I must apologize.

As I walked out of Nord railway Station at 9 am, I was wonderstruck (to borrow the T Swift term). I spent 24 hours wandering through Paris, and in my short time there I found it to be beautiful and diverse and complex.

It felt like art and life, the intersection of the two.

I stayed in Montmartre at Vintage Hostel, which was totally lovely and perfect. It was just a five minute walk from Sacre Coeur so I walked up there first thing to see the view of Paris.

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I walked from there down to the Seine to see the Notre Dame Cathedral and the [outside of] the Louvre. I bought bread and cheese and sat in the sun by the river to eat. Then I walked along to the river till I reached the Eiffel tower.

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“A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and the point of life.” Bold claim, Thomas Jefferson, but I get it. Paris is so many things.

I took the metro back up to Montemartre and went back to the Sacre Coeur to see the view of Paris at night. I bought a crepe on my way back to the hostel and ate it under a twinkling street lamp (and a good distance away from the yelling Moroccan men). It felt like life and it felt like fairytales. And I think that’s what made Paris beautiful to me. It’s magic, and it’s real.

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“The chief danger about Paris is that it is such a strong stimulant.” -T.S. Eliot