It almost never fails. There have been a few exceptions and when you’re low, you’re low, and in those moments I haven’t felt this but those moments have been few and far between. Aside from those, the vast majority have been something almost indescribable.
I’m taking about my bus love, my bus life. Currently crossing Bolivia and that same feeling I’ve had now dozens of times has reared its beautiful head once again. This almost crushing sense of love. It starts with the tiny excitement about leaving a place for another unknown one, then gets inflated by the sheer beauty of the countryside and turns into this sense of awe and inspiration. The mind wanders, questions are asked, people remembered, then something happens and my heart starts to expand. I fall in love. I fall deep. I want to hug the world. I want to tell everyone I’ve left behind I miss them and I want to share this grandiose feeling with the world, wrap it around everyone’s heart and smile at them while I watch them be uplifted by it.
In these times I miss people more than ever but it’s not with angst or regret but with pleasure. I can’t explain it but it’s beautiful. These bus rides are my spiritual experiences and never do I feel more right than when I’m in here, looking out there, watching the world leave stains on my eyes and tears in my heart. How can anyone sleep through the wonders that the world almost forces upon you when you look out the window at the majesty of the bare mountains, the tranquility of the plains, the strength of the desert? I look around the bus at all the people who are asleep and I almost get angry at them. Part of me wants to scream “open your eyes and look at this! Can you not see the universe dancing for you? Can you not feel the earth trembling with passion for you?” I know, it’s not my place to do that and everyone has the right to their priorities but sometimes it almost hurts. I am in love with this world, its beauty, its mystery, its longevity, its ability to inspire and its shyness. I want the universe to see itself through my eyes so that it can finally see what gifts it provides us, me. I haven’t doubted this life that I’ve chosen but never do I feel to the core of me, with every fiber of my being that I’m in the right place, than I do in these moments. Never do I feel so full, so loved, so light as I do on these simple treks across the wondrous lands of the earth. Never do I learn more about myself than in these moments.
My mind flows like a stream, branching off and rejoining itself, asking itself questions, remembering the past, people, things, feelings, and questioning everything about who I think I am and how I got here, what love I’ve shared, what pain I’ve caused, and why. I find answers every time. They aren’t complete but the process gets started and the path is presented before me every time. During these traverses of the earth I also traverse my own soul, finding new levels of self and new appreciations of love. Love lost, love shared, love to come. I feel more connected here, on mother earth’s crust, than anywhere else. As I crawl over her skin I’m touching the depths of her, making love to her, letting the feeling build until I cannot contain it anymore and open a notepad to write it all down, to keep my heart from exploding within my chest.
In these moments I begin to appreciate how I see not just the physical world but the objects of my love. Why I love the way I do. I can see the thread of my life as far back as I can remember and all the people who have left charms on that thread. I can see where I’m different and where I’m not.
Have I always been restless? I have to ask that question. While I don’t always feel like moving and indeed often dread the idea of the next move I find myself consistently excited once the journey has begun. Have I always had this lurking in the back of my mind : a restlessness unexamined, adding anxiety to my life day by day? I find the idea improbable. I don’t remember feeling restless back home though I do remember that feeling in Haiti. But who isn’t a bit anxious and restless in their teenage years? But in Montreal I don’t remember feeling restless for the most part. Sure there may have been short periods but it seems now restlessness almost defines me. But it’s a strange restlessness. It’s a desire to explore more, see more, experience more. On the flip side I am also more than happy to be alone in my head, in my space, and sit quietly, to simply remain. But given some time I feel the urge to move creep up. This is completely contrary to the life I used to know and the desires I used to have, content to be in my apartment for weeks or months on end. How things have changed. I don’t know if restless aptly describes it, as it has negative connotations, but I am certainly being pushed along by life and something inside, to explore the cracks.
I find love in the cracks of life. The destinations are not in fact the destination. And I can see now more than ever that that defines my approach to all my relationships. I don’t need to get there. The getting there is only the break needed to get back on the road again down the line. The destination is only a place to rest, eat, play and explore for a period of time until the road, the real home of the beast lies, ever changing, ever growing, ever learning. It makes so much sense. Why I never wanted what everyone wanted for me or what they wanted for themselves. It makes sense why I always wanted to take my time. Life is in the cracks, in that space between 2 points, between where you came from and where you’re going. In here, you are free, you are open, you are pure love. And it may be that it’s more obvious now given the actually physical movement and the undeniable majesty of the world around, passing me by like the ticks of time, but this is the exact metaphor for my life, living in the cracks, seeing the time in between being places, in between doing things, in between achieving goals, as the space where I want to be, the space where love resides. I never managed to articulate it nor had I ever really been conscious of it. I always attributed it to just wanting to take my time. But the truth is, it was the ride itself I wanted to stay in, letting myself arrive whenever the universe was ready to give me a break. It’s completely backwards but I get it now. I’ll never be normal. I know that now more than ever. It’s neither good nor bad but I need to just accept that and enjoy being connected with what I’m meant to be, with the love of the space in between.