Meandering Momentum

Tuesday, September 11, 2012
San Telmo, Buenos Aires F.D., Argentina
"I missed my family and the comfortable familiarities of home life. I was tired of the daily drudgery of keeping myself fed and bedded, tired of trains and buses, tired of existing in a world of strangers, tired of being forever perplexed and lost, tired above all of my own dull company. At the same time, I had a quite irrational urge to keep going. There is something about the
momentum of travel that makes you want to just keep moving, to never stop." 
- Bill Bryson, "Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe"

I have been in South America for only 7 weeks . This statement utterly confuses me, as I feel as it was a lifetime ago that I watched the orangey-red landscape of Phoenix slowly slip away beneath me. It feels like eons ago that I arrived at my hobbit-sized room in Montevideo. It feels like centuries that I have been living the life nomadic. I have done so much - seen so much! How can it possibly be only 7 weeks? 

Bill Bryson's words reverberate within me. I miss my family, the familiar comforts of home. I am tired of the same food every day. Argentina is known for its beef and it is delicious, but there is little variety in diet here. It's the same types of food in every restaurant and in every grocery store. I'm tired of living in hostel-like accommodations - wearing my flip flops in the showers and sleeping in sheets that make me question if they're really clean. I'm tired of the sea of people constantly changing around me. The kaleidoscope of faces is fascinating, but I miss having solid friends. I'm tired of navigating discreetly in shop corners as to not appear confused or lost .

I also came down with the worst cold I can remember (I've since discoverd it was bronchitis). I've got it all: the body aches, the fevers, the terrible rib-rattling cough, the plugged ears and runny nose. This does nothing to help one's spirit or to continue to foster an air of adventure. If only teletransport was real, I'd blink my eyes, wiggle my nose and be back in my mother's house with toast fingers and a hot water bottle. Feeling this way, the negatives are put under a stronger, harsher, and microscopic lens, burning away the now fragile and delicate layers of positivity. At some point in any adventure, the novelty wears off and you realize that this is your new reality. The familiar is gone and you must now trudge through the new and the different. I find that I have feet in both camps - the old and the new, making it even more difficult to re-calibrate and readjust. What am I doing? Going? Staying? Do I look forward to seeing the things I left behind soon or let them fade, adopting instead the new culture that currently surrounds me? 

These questions plague me . I'm halfway through my journey. There has been a pivotal shift where I am now looking ahead at the end of October when I'll either have found a way to continue my travels (or stay in one particular South American city), or come home. And where is home? Do I want to come back to Arizona? To the city that I left with the feeling that I wouldn't be back? Like red wine in a good glass, these thoughts swirl around and around during my day, leaving long legs when they finally streak back down to the void of sleep. 

As I have said so often, I can't explain why I had to go on this journey. Now that I'm here, I am no nearer to an answer. There has been no sound of trumpets heralding in my new purpose, no angelic voices guiding me to a new reality. In the last week my questions have been hung out to dry. They slowly cure in the Argentina sunlight, lighter with each passing day, the significance slowly shrinking out of them. A good friend reminded me to just be present. Sound advice. So for now, I'm off to the San Telmo Mercado for a lazy day meandering the streets of my current reality, my momentum picking up with each step. 
 
  
 
 
 
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Comments

Joe
2012-09-16

You take great pictures. I especially love the one with the train tracks, last one in this series.

adventureingenu
2012-09-16

Thank you! :)

2025-02-14

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