Field notes: Oaxaca, Mexico
Travel is aging me...
Oaxaca is now officially the furthest south I’ve been to on this side of the world. Good times.1
Travel mishaps:
Missed a flight, had a flight miss me (and all the other passengers), then nearly missed a flight again
Stayed overnight in an airport in a country I’ve never been to and didn’t speak the language of
Character training:
Had to learn to ask for rest and help
Had to learn to be gracious while being stared at and talked about in words I couldn’t understand
Realized complaining has ceased to be a default of mine
Misc.:
Understood more of my mother, missions, and motivations
Let go of anticipated commitments and opportunities due to travel changes without getting hung up over them
Dreamt of Rags the first night here, missed him dearly, then had a dog curl up beneath my seat at the last hurrah café visit
Experienced the led-along, docile version of Odelia — very very rare (haha)
Internal resets:
Went far and long enough away to see my life from a different perspective for a little while; what I missed the most was all that actually mattered to me, not the thousand little things scattering my thoughts on a daily basis
Stayed in a real place long enough to want to leave, then broke through the arggg to be real and present in that same place
Felt intense homesickness and creativity blockages after not seeing loved ones and creating things for more than a week; slowly healed with the help of a borrowed guitar
Felt anew the difference between mountains and pictures of mountains
Left my life in Canada long enough to have no to-dos and basically no control over life for more than a week…and I was fine
Thanks for a beautiful experience, A+A! Perhaps I shall be back in a few years. :)
You may notice the total lack of cuisine pictures. The food was amazing, but my stomach didn’t always agree and my eyes want to continue babying the whole readjusting system. XP