adventure-travel – WELL WORTH BEING

‘Hm’, I said, not meaning for it to be such a short sharp expression of a somewhat surprising realisation. I often disappear into my thoughts; occasionally I get jolted back with the realisation that I have spoken something—usually a question—out loud. Today, sitting in an armchair in the library of Kopan Monastery where I am staying for a week, I found myself unwittingly tapping on my phone, writing about death. The subject had been discussed in the earlier dharma talk and, on entering the library, my eyes and hands thankfully landed immediately on The Book of Joy by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I tend to experience excessive overwhelm when choosing a book in a library or bookstore and often the doors have closed while I am still drifting trance-like up and down aisles, touching and leafing through—and often sniffing—hundreds of books I fail to narrow down to just that one. It seems unjust somehow to eliminate so much unread potential with the accumulated value of hundreds of thousands of writing hours by hopeful authors. This is why ‘thankfully’ interjected there. As it happens, I read very little of the joy book. Surrounded by all those words and wisdom, a quite typical Penelope thought crossed my mind: I am more afraid of my luggage not appearing on the airport carousal than I am of dying.

I decided to unpack that—so to speak—in light of my current day of drifting in and out of sleep; my previous few days of stiffness in my knuckles, forearms and upper back; general tension and weakness in my body, and an incapacity to fully function. The now almost fully-healed wound on my right arm reminds me of the potential cause of these symptoms: a dog bite a week ago in Pharping Dollu.

We are all on the limen of life and death and not one of us knows exactly when we will unwittingly cross. Yet cross we will. So, when the darkness beckons, I submit. Sometimes I go so deep into the dark without a flashlight and, to the alarm of many, I’m not afraid of staying there a while. And then I write and I share. But no one wants to hear these travel stories. People want to live vicariously … they want to suck the dopamine hits from my days on the road. They want romance stories not murder mysteries; they want beaches and sunsets, not oil slicks and smog. People want to be wooed by their projected fantasies onto the ones who leave; unwilling or unable to live their dreams into existence.

I have so often been dangerously and excitingly close to crossing that limen between life and death that I can freely claim to have intentionally dangled a foot over the threshold on more than one occasion. This time, however, I had to weigh up the risks of taking my chances dying from a disease I had a minuscule chance of contracting or getting a vaccine and risking injury or death from a medicine I had a minuscule chance of needing. Either way I might die and I had 24 hours to choose which death risk I was willing to take. Those hours felt like a hike through hell as I had to not only consider my choice to vaccinate or not but also navigate my unfamiliar discomfort with death standing vigil at the foot of my bed.

Every breakthrough is accompanied by a fever.

I awoke from a torrid night with the absolute surrender to my mortality and my autonomy in taking my chances crossing the threshold potentially whilst still exploring Nepal. Life, after all is only a practice and death is inevitable … and if this is my destiny then my freedom to choose this was also pre-determined.

Like the luggage on the carousel, I recognise that suffering is in the anticipation only; the struggle and the resistance. It lies in the attachment. Some have suffering imposed on them and some get stuck in adversity as though an addiction whilst others embrace it out of fear of who they would need to be if freedom was their new reality. Still there are others who never experience suffering and adversity and always seek an elusive freedom as a fish seeks the water it swims in.

The weight on the airport scales is nothing compared with what I drag onto planes … the emotional baggage; the leaden soul. Dark nights and prolonged depressions are also travel. Longterm nomading has nothing to do with escaping anything and everything to do with facing everything … in ever-changing landscapes that highlight the myriad crises and give endless space to tease them apart … to sometimes break them open … to make space enough to step back, get perspective and rebuild with breathing space. Because nothing can be escaped. All I can do is express how it actually feels, not how I want it to feel. And not how vicarious travellers want to experience it either.

So I travel to recover and heal from a lifetime of living in survival mode, decades of abuse, breakdowns and mental afflictions such as narcolepsy, ADHD and autism. I travel to break down the walls of the necessity to function according to other people’s perceptions and expectations so that I can transmute and transmit my light through the cracks in the dark matter of dis-ease, dis-function and dis-order. I travel to free myself from the here or there or now or then; to find the moments of existence that contain everything and nothing. Because true freedom can only be found through the gateways. I travel to practice living well so that I can die well.

Death still lingers as aches and pains as I face up to where I am in its liminal space. As I stand at the carousel of life and luggage, I none the less give the three black monastery dogs an uncharacteristic wide berth as I walk to the Gompa. Just becasue I am questioning the power of my mind to slip either into healing or suffering and how prepared I am to cross the threshold does not mean I actually want to die just yet.

I travel to question my questions so that I may never find the answers.

Places leave imprints on the soul. Like lovers, we exchange DNA and leave a part of ourselves in each other. Like attracts like so, just as consumption of any substance creates a resonance for more, so too do these places I traverse set up the frequency of return. Since arriving at Mama Lanka’s bosom, my eyes no longer strain for familiar comfort, my ears find solace in the sounds.

But it’s not about seeing anything new but rather seeing everything anew.

The words composure and sangfroid are common synonyms of equanimity. While all three words mean ‘evenness of mind under stress’, equanimity suggests a mind only rarely disturbed under great strain. Stress tears the gloopy untransformed caterpillar from its chrysalis; it cracks the shell from the inside, killing the unformed baby bird.

A friend told me not to worry too much about my food addiction, that I would find connections to fill that void. I feel fed through my senses. How right she was. Our fears simply show us what we are searching for.

A mongoose scuttles across the road. A smudge of baby bird yolk on its snout. And I’m on the move again. Belching exhausts,, burning plastic … potholes big enough to devour a small person. City life layered between rice paddies. Coconut groves. Dogs sleep in doorways to keep cool and across roads to keep warm … and politely keep watch at food stalls. Hope lives. A gormless looking water buffalo lifts an opportunistic egret into a marsh. Horns are honked as greeting. Hairy brown coconut shells on spikes pierce the earth to scare marauding crows. Scalps on sticks. A dog run free still choked by its owners chain. Freedom wears a cosh.

Each day of travel breathes change into me, like the changing landscapes I am tugged through by growling grumbling tuk tuks. The earth turns slowly, the tuk driver freewheels; gains little momentum. Captain Jack Sparrow glowers at me from the fabric ceiling. Are we there yet?

If Vipassana was solitary confinement, and Kandy was fast track freedom into the frenetic, Hiriketiya is the equilibrium, the poise. Like the literal rows of surfers on every wave the bay can conjure, it is the place that balances the familiar on both sides of the spectrum. Arrival at Sand Dollar House is like coming home; it even has a dog called Bella. No belching smoke, no burning plastic … and the opinionated peacocks have enough to say to override the discordant ice-cream truck … mostly. It is a beautifully considered space for quiet introspection away from the carnage of resort-style escapades yet, a short walk away for swims and … yes … runs.

Like bubbles rising up through honey, calibration needs to breathe. And to run is my best form of breathwork. Movement, I have come to reflect on, isn’t a diversion. It’s a purification … it’s pure liberation. My teacher says I must “run first, then class”. “Purify physical body to unlock trapped kundalini energy”, he adds. He gets me. One of the few, he accepts my all.

Running the bays in the early morning avoids heat and gives a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes local vibes, while the throngs of tourists on surf holidays are sleeping off their cocktails. I have the beach almost entirely to myself. As an indication I’m on the right map, I see an actual sign Connect the Dots to Dots Co-working space and surf cafe … I get my laptop and go for coffee. The dog has taken the best seat in the house.

My runs are short; they take long. The view refocuses me, the sunrise blinds me, and I drop for expansive moments into the magnitude of connection. A vicious dog stops me in my tracks, grabs my leg and tries to bite me. White with a black head, it reminds me of the bird at Vipassana, content with its shadow part that still remains … a reminder of work to be done. Done with fighting, I sternly grab the scruff of his neck and look him square in the eye. “NO!” I declare. He listens better than a few men I know and runs off on his way.

In the months before my departure, anxiety sat on my shoulder and coaxed me into researching, plotting and planning; it collaborated with my intuition around what I felt I needed and would need as I progressed. A structured itinerary to provide the containment for the journey to flow. Every place I chose has dosed me with the medicine I need.

To affirm and highlight this wise inner voice, Saturday night brings waking through the night to club music. And chanting. At 1am the music is throttled. The chanting remains; no liquor licence required for sustainable living. Fireflies surround my bed like glow-in-the-dark stars. Am I dreaming the whole thing?

Blue Beach beckons like sirens. I hear the call and walk the 2km to a tiny fisherman’s’ bay. And, like sirens, it thrashes me over jagged sea-urchin-encrusted rocks. I bleed. Bloodletting is clearly still my medicine. But, if you’ve read my previous updates, you now know the way to remove a leech is simple—just a squirt of salt water. I immerse my being in an entire bay. The waterfalls all run here and all the metaphorical leeches that cling are cleansed away.

Life right now is all about beach runs, ocean bathing and coconuts. I travel solo to get from myself what I seek from others. where I can meet myself in fullness. I don’t travel because I am brave but because if I don’t travel I will die.

Sand Dollar House is expanding and looking for longterm lets—it is the perfect space for writers, artists, therapists, surfers and free-spirited wonderers; a haven away from the hustle and bustle where you can perfect your craft whilst still having easy access to the most beautiful bays and a multitude of local and international bars, restaurants and shops. Oh how tempted I am.

You can’t stop the waves but you can learn how to surf. I am taking this purely metaphorically as I watch the surfers and feel only JoMo floating on my back in the over-salted swell, needing no balance because the water cradles me, supports me.

Every step I take is a paving stone on the road to my future, a stem cell in the placenta of my development. I am both pregnant with potential and also that potential being hatched.

Maybe I really can have it all.