Trying to catch my thoughts at the Denver airport. My life has been so packed lately, that there’s been absolutely no space to daydream. My thoughts elbow each other, one train getting cut off by another. Like the throngs of people in this place, they hurry past. Getting in each other’s way.
I flew here from Billings Montana through a sky of white nothingness. I was sure the pilot was lost, “ladies and gentlemen, we’re beginning our descent into Denver,” came the announcement, but then the plane nosed higher into the sky.
When we finally began the descent, I kept looking out the window searching for solid ground. We hit the tarmac with a jolt—the runway came into view when we were about 30-feet above it. We slowly filtered out, the brief burst of fresh cold air through the jet bridge invigorating. I gulped it in as we made our way up the narrow chute to the terminal.
I bought a green gingery Jamba Juice from a tiny teen boy who missed his momma—he needed her to prompt him to speak to me. Another employee filled in.
“Ask her for her name.”
“I don’t know… I don’t know how to enter it.”
“Here,” she said, her impatience visible as she aggressively commandeered the register, forcing him to step back.
I brushed my teeth in the restroom, trying to rid them of the residue from the cough drops I’d been sucking on during the flight. Someone chose the sink right next to me to wash their hands, just as I was about to spit. I held it awkwardly, waiting for them to leave.
I didn’t bring my notebook and pen with me, so here I am. Sitting on a plastic chair with a view of the soggy wet tarmac. I’ve got articles due tomorrow but just… don’t feel like working on them right now.
I took a peek at some of my older writing projects, and quickly closed them. Fucking boring. Too optimistic. The me that wrote them would be appalled that I currently work to supplement my writing gigs at a customer service-related call center. That goes against everything they were screaming about: FREEDOM. Quitting your job, yet here I am. Freedom—as I’m learning – can be found in many ways.
There’s something so freeing in giving yourself permission to be, and to be okay with where you are here and now. Because you know it’s not going to be forever, and you remember all those years ago. How miserable you were, but also how the early morning sun would filter through the open window and light up a square on your wall, and you’d sit in bed and read and write, sipping strong black coffee. Your heart was broken, your stomach in knots, but at the same time anything was possible. You had pen and paper to prove it.
You haven’t forgotten how much you were hurting back then, and yet nostalgia still manages to tug at you from time to time and pull you back. Sunny mid-town streets with bustling cafes. The sweet pungent aroma carried with the breeze, a mix of lilac and roses. Birds chirping optimistically. How catching down-wind whiffs of other people’s cigarette smoke made you want to puke, you were so hungover. It all plays out now in a heart-wrenching minor key.
They say it’s more about how a book makes you feel—that’s what people remember.
I want to write the book that gives you permission to be where you are, right now. The book that encourages you embrace life, wherever you are. The book that inspires authentic change in perspective, circumstance, or both. I want to write a book that urges people to be creative. The book that celebrates ordinary, takes it and turns it into something special. Because maybe I need it, or need to sink deeper into it so I don’t forget.
Over and over, people reach toward external circumstances as a means of finding fulfillment and joy. I’m clumsily trying to weave a tapestry that includes both: the inner and the outer.
With an ounce of perspective, a dash of direction and a few cups of coffee, anything’s possible.
All it takes is a decision and the will to follow through.
TRAVEL & ADVENTURE 