Where is my map to the world?

 

I don’t know how I ended up in Narita airport that night, curled up by the window using my Jansport as a pillow and trying to find rest while a night janitor vacuumed not far away. I  remember staring, fully awake, past the hum of jet engines to what I knew was the skyline of Tokyo, and a nightlife just getting started. I was leaving Japan that night. I would be in Bangkok by morning. The blue lights of the runway winked at me out of time. I had bought a ticket in an senseless state, and was still baffled that my spontaneous decision had real consequences. I had no destination or purpose in Thailand; no work to do, or sites to see. I didn’t even have a map. But that didn’t really matter—I can’t read them.

I was working in Tokyo at the time, but I wanted to get away. I needed a vacation from Japan, which had become stifling and rigid for me as I repeated the same routine everyday. So one evening after work, as I lounged in front of my laptop with a few Asahi beers, I found myself staring at yet another booking site. I imagined a beach where James Bond solved international crime, a place where curry was so spicy your ears sweat, a country where massages were practically free and drinks were sipped from coconuts. With one click of my mouse, I spent two paychecks on a red-eye flight from Tokyo to Bangkok.

Slowly, it began to sink in—now I would actually have to go to this strange place. I was exhausted from trying to live in Japan, to fit in and look like its customs came naturally to me. And now I was headed into yet another culture, vastly different from the Western one I grew up in.

But as I booked my way to Bangkok that night, I felt another sensation, one that had nothing to do with the empty beer cans by my computer. I felt wild and brave, calm and confident, energized and optimistic. It was a heady cocktail of hope, mixed with strength, splashed with curiosity. I had lost my wits, and been handed a set of new ones. Though fleeting, I wanted more of this feeling.

For many years I repeated the same impulsive pattern, booking flights spontaneously in search of that ephemeral feeling. Since then I have woken up in a lot of new cities, guided by nothing more than my anticipation for the new and undiscovered. I have wriggled my toes in sand from ten different countries. I have eaten all the local delicacies that don’t squirm as I swallow them. I’ve single-handedly kept the coffee industry alive by buying flat whites and long blacks at every cafe that dare have WiFi. I’ve held my camera up in front of the things they tell me I should, and I press the button that shows everyone “been there, done that.” But still, I haven’t had a good handle upon the feeling I chase for longer than a moment. It is elusive, jumping just ahead out of grasp. 

And so I search the corners of this world for where it might be waiting for me—permanently. I know what I’m looking for, and I am certain it is waiting in a new city I haven’t yet been. I imagine stepping into its central square and, like a plug finding a socket, I am filled with an energy that illuminates my full potential. I bend down and kiss the cobblestone and spend the rest of my life thanking this place for being here, for waiting for me, for being perfect for me.

Even though I booked a red-eye to Thailand, I never found much sleep that night. As I watched the sun rise over Bangkok beneath the wing of that 747, eating rice porridge that didn’t taste entirely awful, it was there—the feeling. It was the transient, electrifying awareness I longed to find for good. I didn’t know it then, but in that airplane hurtling for a southeast Asian paradise I had found my place. 

I am there when I peer out of windows that overlook a fresh set of streets I’ve never seen. I am aboard trains and planes, buses and ferry-boats, cars and trollies. I am pulling in, sailing away, touching down, screeching to a halt. I am without a map, or an umbrella, or the proper currency. I am wandering without a destination. I am energized, but I am serene; humbled and at peace.

I am strong. 

I am hopeful. 

I am moving. 

 

I am lost, but I am wending my way around—even if I can’t find it on a map.

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