What I Still Haven't Written

A few weeks ago I was driving away from the house I grew up in Maria Stein, OH. I had visited my Dad for the afternoon, to celebrate the holidays. As I turned down Kremer Road, the street I lived on for 18 years, I told Tony, my life partner, “I can’t believe I used to live here.”

He responded, factually, “You’ve come a long way. You’ve done so many things with your life.”

For the days after my visit, I kept thinking about the little girl that grew up in Maria Stein, OH. It felt like I knew her well, but it didn’t feel like me. I didn’t and still don’t feel like that girl that grew up in that farmhouse all those years ago. It’s like I read about this girl in a book and finally got to visit her home.

I wonder how many lifetimes one person can live in a life, ‘cause it sure feels like I’ve got a few under my belt.

For the past two years, as I’ve admittedly abandoned my writings, or at least what I’m sharing with the world, a similar transition has taken place. I’ve experienced so much, in such a short period of time, that it’s hard to capture the essence of who I feel I am today. Two and a half years ago, when I first wrote about leaving my corporate job and taking my first solo trip to Bali, I was so afraid. I still remember sitting on the flight telling the older gentleman next to me how scared I was to be going to the other side of the world all by myself. He had a graying beard and wore a light blue striped button down shirt. I felt safe with him and quietly wanted him to accompany me, to keep me safe. He was so calm and told me I would be just fine, that I would have the time of my life. Of course he wasn’t wrong, and I did have the time of my life.

I look back on that first trip, to Bali, where I really, truly was, in all of my years, so incredibly afraid, and I wonder how the thing that scared me the most – flying across the world and entering a new country all by myself – has become the thing that lights me up more than almost anything else, the thing that I long for. I suppose it’s proof that with enough practice, all of the things that scare us to death can become the things that feed our souls and begin to feel natural. Maybe we don’t really need to be afraid of anything.

In the past few years, I’ve woken up more times than all of my prior years combined, wondering where I am. What bed am I in? Who is here with me, or am I alone? What country am I in? Home has become an interesting concept for me. I’ve been to some of the poorest places in the world and experienced some of the most corrupt political systems, and yet when I ask about the local people who have left, they all want to go back. When I ask why, it’s simple. “Because it is their home.”

I have the same longing to be ‘home.’ Back in the USA, where I know the language, the regulations, my rights, the comfort of my own foods. And yet, every time I arrive back ‘home,’ it feels like a part of my soul is left in the place or places I just came from. I feel like parts of my soul have been scattered around the globe, different people who have changed my life holding a part of it in their hearts. And somehow I trust them all with it.

I’ve never felt like I belonged in this world, always having been different, and it’s a novice feeling for me to feel like this entire world is finally my home. I wonder if I would have found that sense of belonging without connecting to strangers so different yet so alike me.

So while, two and a half years ago I set out to see the world, I’ve now gotten so much more out of it. With every post I’ve shared before, I was able to articulate and formulate my own thoughts with others, and I always learned something about myself by putting my experiences into words. Right now, I’ve got a hodged podged list of thoughts from the many places I’ve visited since my last post…many, many months ago. And it’s my own promise to myself to put them into some semblance of order. Not a chronological timeline of my travels, but my experiences as they shaped me and gave me perspective. Because believe me, watching spiders the size of your hand crawl on the ceiling above you and geckos run across the wall near your feet, as you attempt to sleep in the middle of an African village will give you perspective. Because driving through the Namibian desert with your sister, not a soul or building for hundreds of miles, hoping the water you have in your backseat is enough, will give you perspective. Because floating on the Amazon river watching caimans twice the size of your body hunt for food will give you perspective. Hearing strangers talk about their families, tell you about their food, teach you how to eat with your hands. Watching mothers with their children, teachers in schools with their students, hosts so proudly entertain. All of it, it’s all given me perspective. And it’s changed me. So here goes Season 2 of this journey that has turned into so much more than just a year long trip around the world.

I think I’ll finish where I left off last. In Bolivia.

We – my Mom, my youngest sister, Natalie, our driver and guide, and me – were driving across a plane of salt. It looked like we were driving across the world’s largest flat of compacted snow. It reminded me of rural Ohio. But it was over 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

The Uyuni Salt Flats, a legacy of a prehistoric lake, sit in rural Bolivia, at nearly 12,000 feet in altitude. They occupy over 4,000 square miles of land. And there’s nothing on them except an occasional car, and even then, that’s a rarity.

At some point in our drive, let’s say 30 minutes in, our driver stops and we all pile out of the car. “You have as much time as you want,” our guide tells us with a smile. When you are ready, we will have a lunch set up for you over here, and he points to an area next to the car. So we wander, snapping photos of everything, yet, there is really nothing but white. Everywhere. Just white…and a clear blue sky.

The salt flats provide a perfect opportunity to get perspective photos, meaning we take pictures of each standing just a few feet apart and appear that there are miles between us. We have fun with this for a while and then retreat to lunch.

In Bolivia, the driver’s wife always makes lunch for the group he will be driving that day. He presents us with a multi-course meal: bread, roasted chicken, steamed vegetables, fresh fruit. It’s delicious, and obviously so meticulously thought out. I quietly wonder how many meals she – our driver’s wife – makes for tourists. And, knowing that Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America, wonder what the meals for her family consist of.

We spend the afternoon driving around the salt flats, laughing at the goofy pictures we are making. Shortly before the sun sets, we pull over. “I want to watch the sun set with you,” our guide says. I think this has to be one of the most surreal moments – watching the sunset in Bolivia, not a soul around, on a plane of salt that is thousands of years old. He gets out and opens our door for us. We climb out and stare into the distant, watching the perfectly round, yellow sun against the horizon. We can’t get enough pictures.

I turn around to get my jacket out of the car; it’s getting cold as the sun sets. I see a table with five chairs set up. The table is covered in a red patterned cloth, something very traditional. On the table sits a bottle of red wine, four wine glasses (none for our driver), and a charcuterie board.

“Have a seat,” our guide says. And the five us gather around the table, peering into the distant, as the day sets. He pours us each a glass of wine and I grab a slice of summer sausage and cheese from the deli tray.

“What kind of meat is it?” Natalie inquires.

“I’m not sure but it’s really good,” I tell her, as I go in for another slice.

She grabs a few, tastes them, and tells me the same. “That’s really good.”

As soon as the sun is set, we head back to Uyuni, the nearest city. “It’s too cold to be out here for long,” our guide explains. And he drops us off at a hotel made entirely of salt. The walls are salt, the tables are salt, the bed frames are salt. Everything, outside of the mattress and toilet, is made of salt.

There is little heat as we all crawl into bed in a room with three separate beds, wearing leggings and long sleeve shirts. “Mmm, this is nice,” I mumble as I drift off to sleep.

A few hours later, around 1 am, Natalie taps my arm. “Renee, I’m not feeling very well,” she whispers, the bathroom light shining into the room.

I stumble awake. Knowing we are at 12,000 feet, I am convinced she must have altitude sickness. “Are your lips blue? What about your hands?” I know that if we need to get her some oxygen, since it’s so low at high altitudes, we can go to the front desk and have them get some for her.

“No,” she says. “I don’t have blue lips or fingers.”

We decided that it’s a combination of too much travel and the altitude, but nothing to be concerned about.

The next morning, we all piled back into the same car for an eight hour drive to San Pedro, Chile. Natalie hugged herself and slept in the backseat the entire time, unaware of what was going on.

On the other side of the border, finally in Chile, we settled into our room. It was a small room with three single beds lined up, like a children’s camp. We had pizza and a beer – well, my Mom and I did – across the street from our hotel.

Six hours later, in the middle of the night, it became apparent that Natalie wasn’t suffering from altitude sickness. As I tossed and turned, got up and down, Natalie and I came to the conclusion that the ‘very good’ meat we had the day before was not ‘so good.’

The sickness would last for the next three to four days, never impacting my Mom as she didn’t eat any of the meat.

In between the real lows of not feeling well, though, we managed to drive into the Atacama Desert – the driest desert in the world – and see the Milky Way galaxy in the pitch black of night, clear as a picture, with no clouds or light pollution.

It’s these moments, so far away from home, from the little girl I barely know anymore, that I find myself wondering how I got to be so lucky. How did I get to be the one living this fantastically beautiful life? A mere speck of dust floating around on one of millions of spheres in this galaxy, in the entire universe, and I am the one who gets to have these amazingly touching, indescribable moments. I looked up one last time to the yellow, blue, and purple colors making up our galaxy. Wow! There were no other words. Just Wow!