I want to tell the story of the world
By being a part of it.
If I could, I would get on a plane tomorrow and leave.
I don’t know where I would start, but it would definitely be place that was extraordinarily different then what I’m used to. I would spend a week as a tourist - seeing monuments, getting lost, taking pictures, meeting the locals and telling them I’m new and am excited to see and hear it all.
I would get lost at least once in every city I went to. When your lost, you see things as they are because you need to. I would defamiliarize myself from something that was already unfamiliar. I would see things I would’ve otherwise missed. I would remember them deeply because they were preventing my panic.
Sometimes you need to be disorient yourself to understand where you are.
After my week of tourism was up, I would spend 2 weeks immersing myself in this still-new place. This place I’d only scratched the surface of. This place I yearned to understand and be a part of.
I would sit by rivers alone with a notebook. I would take pictures of things other people missed. I would notice the different ways in which tourists reacted to the city. I would have the most interesting conversations of my life.
I would learn how to draw.I would try to learn how to draw.
I would tie a disposable camera on a park bench with instructions, then come back the next day to check the film. I would create a blog and upload the ones that weren’t nudity.
I would write out the stories of people who weren’t sure how to tell them on their own.
I would not be afraid to care. I would not be told what not to do. I would not be mocked, because to everyone I met I would be new. To a stranger, quirky is exciting. To be weird is to be set apart from the hundreds of other strangers they’ve seen today. My impression on them would be real. They would know me as I should be known - out of my element and completely okay with it.
I want to practice my sincerity on strangers.
I want to wear a dress from Italy on the streets of Brussels. I want to drink French wine in Germany. I want to learn to dance in Spain, and then practice in India. I want to discover how to say “Good Morning” in Polish, and then teach it to an Egyptian. I want to send a Brazilian postcard to my new friends in Portugal.
I want to be a part of every country, and I want every country to be a part of me.
I want to show the world itself.
I want to tell the story of the world.
And I sure as hell can’t do that from here.
