Last 48 Hours in Peru

"Man. Life is weird," I said, spreading cashew butter over a bagel.

"Tell me about it," Lucy picked up her coffee and took a sip.

"I joined Tinder, last night, and what can I say. I woke up to 213 likes and didn’t have the urge to see any one of them naked," I set the knife down on the plate.

"That sure is a lot of penis."

"Yeah, after a certain number, it's too many."

"Why did you join Tinder? You don't do stuff like that," Lucy wiped her lips with a fancy napkin."

She was right.

"It’s way out of your character to 'fish for dick'."

"It's my new way of life," I said, motioning to the Peruvian waiter for the check. "I guess I realized life will mold into anything you make it. I'm fucking bored."

"Jesus, Annie, you just flew in from Cairo and made out with some Korean dude ten years younger than you."

"That's part of this new 'try new things' mantra that I am going to try."

As we sat there chatting over dirty plates, I thought about where the itch to go bonkers came from. Sure, I left the United States, but living in the same Chinese neighborhood for seven years had me living a routine I barely questioned. Back then and for a while, I loved my life. My art studio, my collection of friends and students, my spoken word stage, and my favorite table in my favorite cafe were all things I had grown very used to. But, like water left in a bowl that sits in the same corner of a room, it will eventually stagnate.

"Didn't you feel like this in China, too?"

"Like what?"

"Like you were missing something."

"I feel it as soon as my bedding matches the towls in wherever I am staying. The mediocre Martha Stewart life just isn't for me, I guess."

I thought back to that one Chinese morning I woke up with that familiar panic that I was missing ‘it.’ The thought that life was happening without me, and the uneasiness pushed me so hard that I quit my job later that day. Another hero's journey was about to be taken, and I didn’t care if I ended up wandering around in a desert. I wanted to live. To know what I am capable of before I die. In the last 18 months, I’ve hit 6 countries, collected a few scars, slept on mountain tops, skipped a few meals, kissed a few men, and have this journal entry to show for it. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. With all my possessions shoved into a suitcase, I have no debt to banks or to anyone; this is what freedom feels like.

"Where will you go to next?"

"I have to go back to California for a while."

"You're going home?"

"What's home? Where's home?" I slipped in a 200 peso bill into the check folder. "Doesn't everything change, and keep changing, after the age of 10?"

Over the years, I’ve had a few old buddies reach out to me and ask how I do it. They ask me if I’m worried about not having a pension or a family when I get old. I tell them, the entire earth and every living thing in it is my family. And I’m not worried about being 80-years-old when climate change cannot even guarantee humanity the next 20. They twist up in confusion and pat themselves on the back telling themselves that I did it wrong and they did it right.

"I have to pack my bags to get on another airplane to Columbia in a few hours," I got up from the table.

"I'm going to miss you, Annie."

"I'll miss you too," I set a postcard with all my digital contact information on the table. "Keep in touch and meet me in Europe sometime."

I don’t know how I got so brave to just go. Go. And Go. I don’t wait for people to figure out their own tangled minds, because if I did, I’d never do anything. This, to me, is what living is. Doing everything, anything, always no matter if you must do it on your own.

I’ve been up since 5 a.m. drinking coffee and saying good bye to short-term friends and ignoring the laundry I need to wash by hand and the Greek postcards and world maps I have to strip from my apartment walls. I’ll get to it when I’m done casting word pebbles.

There are too many emotions running through my veins to give story to the mud, horses, Indians, trains, museums, beers, and brawls I’ve gotten into because there is a mental haze I cannot see clearly through while still being here.

Cusco has been marvelous. I’ve enjoyed all the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde climates. I’ve fancied the paradoxes of every single person I have met. Just like everywhere I’ve been, no place is perfect. Poor people sleep in shacks yet have community, and wealthy people sleep between lice-free sheets yet are disconnected from the natural world. Everyone struggles no matter what they are born into. People are a collection of skid marks and rainbows. Within them, both are the brightest of lights and the darkest of colds; regardless of Machu Picchu being the energetic third-eye of this planet.

I’m taking all of this lived experience with me and looking forward to what is to come. In the hero's journey, the hero returns a changed being. As I head home, I know it will not be the same for I am no longer the person that left the shores 12 years ago. Like the great Greek philosopher Heraclitus once wrote, no man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. Or woman, in this case.