captivate, cultivate, and chalk it up to basic needs

I travel to be still

Only I would say something as absurd as the sub-title of this post. The longer I continue to seek out travel, the more I realize it is true. I've had many of my best revelations, most inspirational moments, and most serious decisions made while on some form of transportation. Something about the movement, about the idea that in that exact moment I am not merely figuratively between places, but physically between places as well. I have major issues saying, "no." I realized this in college, but despite a cognizant effort to say "no" more frequently, it was still difficult to do it. I was instructed to draw lines in the sand and boundaries to ensure personal growth, moments of downtime, time to reflect and be still. All those things sound great, but I thrive on having too much going on. Even if I wanted to, even if I could, I can't say no. I've just started reading Crazy Busy, and in just the first few pages I realize that its true. The business is due to my own pride, and inability to let others down, my fear that if I do say no it will hurt my future opportunities. One of my closest influences constantly tells me that if I have too much going on, I'm not truly dedicating anything special to any one thing. And I do believe that.

But when I travel, I don't have to say no. There is something freeing about being unreachable. I'm not unreachable because I am selfish and turned off my cell phone for the morning or was negligent and left my phone at home causing others to worry about me or be incapable of contacting me. Oh no, I'm unreachable because it is expensive and inconvenient to contact me. There is something great about being able to walk from one end of the city to other and not feel that pressing NEED to be somewhere else. Yesterday, I sat at the pool, with my music and just thought. I just thought! It was wonderful. I did the same thing on my flight from London back to Madrid. Being still leads to being a better observer of what's around. Sometimes I don't actually need to be still, but just be not thinking, not active, not preoccupied, not consumed.

We need stillness. We crave it. We need it for our spiritual health, and we need it for our mental and physical health. If you can acquire stillness on your own, I think you deserve a big pat on the back, because I can't. I have to travel to get it. Fine, I don't have to travel, but its a strong preference of mine. I have to be moving in order to be still. And it's so bizarre because I can have this deep, rejuvenating rest for a few weeks and it affects me like a bear who stores up energy and nutrients for his hibernation. I know that because of this time, I can go back to my insanity and my overflowing plate and put in far more energy than I ever would have if I hadn't had this time.

Being "still" in the park last week actually meant learning how to juggle. Which is ironic because I can't juggle balls worth anything like what I juggle in real life. 

Sunset between London and Madrid 

Me thinking at the pool

Ritual Union

I travel for the glam and the gore
Reinventing yourself is such a big American phenomenon. I think retracing yourself should be as well. Perhaps you'll think I am overexaggerating, but I left a life here. I just abandoned it and started over. I have a habit of doing this. Thanks to this habit, I have stories that belong in a novel; I have friends all over the world, I have pictures worth 1000 words and I have scattered pieces of my heart in many places. Of course, I stuffed much of my Madrid experience into my heart and I always carry it with me.
I feel compelled to be up to my old habits, to go to all my favorite watering holes, and to love Madrid in the precise way I learned to love it. Unlike other times I've sought solace and refuge in the European continent, I didn't run from something this time, I ran TO it. However, I did not come to be transported back to being 22. I came to bridge my life now with my life then, and to make them one. This is proving very challenging- emotionally and physically. It's not fun to be on the Madrid time schedule and go to sleep at six in the morning then sit in a law school classroom three hours later. It's also proving a true test of the timber of my heart, to reminisce and to so clearly visualize the different turns and decisions I could have so easily made in a different direction.
This is not a post about regrets, but one about habits. "Ritual unions have got me in trouble again. I was wondering, of the white dress, and a mistress, a spirit holding my hand." (Little Dragon) This is a series of thoughts and fears about reaching into the future and into the past simultaneously. About redefining. About growth.

Traveling and globe wandering to the absurd extent that I have  boasts a lot of glamour. Let me remind you, in 2013 I lived for four months in Africa and four months in London. In 2013, my feet stepped on the sovereign ground of THIRTEEN nations. Oooh, you swoon, sitting at your desk. 
But there is also gore. 
It has immense challenges. 
I won't conflate such a discussion in this post for fear of you incorrectly thinking that I am ungrateful, or trying to make a statement that travel is not "all it's chalked up to be." Travel, in fact, is so much MORE than any one chalks it up to be, that it is a gift that keeps giving, keeps challenging, keeps pouring out blessings.
This harvest of blessings is hard on my heart.

Learning to strike the balance between roots and branches, yet how to mold my own past self with a new future self in order to be one content mono-polar human really has me pensive (and playing this song on repeat). 

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

I travel for people...

Its been an incredible blessing to be surrounded with some of my favorite people in the entire world this summer. Just to give you the correct image - I have about three incredibly precious friends from when I lived in Madrid that I am still close to today. Two of the four, I lived with at an apartment on a street called Rios Rosas. Cande, one of those roommates was my roommate nearly the entire time I lived in Madrid. Cande now lives about two streets over from where we used to live, and she lives with another Argentinian, who happened to apply to a program in Paris for the month of July. So, like something perfectly designed by the stars, I am living in her roommate's room and we are roommates again. Cande is leaving to return to Argentina in August and so I will be her first and last roommate while she lived in Madrid for three years. Wow, it gives me chills. 
The other one of those two, Gabriel, was in Madrid to complete his masters and now he works back in Brazil for Google (no big deal). I have been incredibly lucky to see Gab in Los Angeles last May, and to see Cande in Barcelona in October. But the three of us haven't been together since 2012. Until last Saturday. It was an epic reunion, and I want to cry just thinking about how incredibly beautiful and sweet it was to be reunited, in our city, at our favorite restaurants, discussing our favorite things. To add icing on the cake, Cande's boyfriend and my boyfriend were also there basking in the happiness and hearing some of our greatest adventures. Wow. 
The third, Melania, who I visited in Rome in October comes to Spain in another week. 
Other than arranging my living situation, Gab and Melania is completely coincidence and God's plan being far better than mine. 
I just LOVE it when a plan comes together better than in my wildest dreams. 
Through these great people, I have continued to meet more great people who are like minded and like-hearted. People who love the world and love the people in it. We've had great discussions over Rioja over the future, the gray areas, and hot-topic debates. It further reminds me that I travel for the people I have the privilege of sharing the travels with. I travel for those who travel with me, and for those I meet along the way. 

Gab and I at our old metro stop home

Brian and I at Retiro, Madrids equivalent of Central Park

REUNION

If its love, and we decide that its forever; no one else can do it better

If its love, and we are two birds of a feather 

and the rest is just whatever

We can be them, two birds of a feather that flock together.

Love, love, got to have something to keep us together. 

Love- that's enough for me. 

We can travel to Spain, 

it sounds insane, cause it is. 

We can laugh, we can sing, have ten kids and give them everything. 

Love, love, got to have something to keep us together. 

-If Its Love, Train

Official Announcement Declaring Madrid is Stephanie's Favorite City in the World

Take me to the docks,
there is a ship there with no name
sailing to the middle of the sea
water there is deeper than anything you've ever seen
Jump right in and swim until you're free
I will remember your face
because I am still in love with that place
when the stars are the only things we share, 
I've got a plan
I've got an atlas in my hands
I'm going to turn when I listen to the listens that I've learned.
-Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Atlas Hands

I am not wandering in this city. I belong here. I know these streets. I know the route. I know the tricks. Madrid is an old glove that I am just now sliding over my fingers, because last winter never got quite cold enough. It feels like the cozy blanket you crave when you're watching a movie on the couch. It is filling a space in my heart that I didn't even realize needed filling.

I forgot how in Madrid, you say "vale" at least 100 times per day. (It means "okay" mas o menos). I forgot just how good croquettas really are. I somehow had let the true taste of tinto de verano in the sun fade from my tongue. I return as if I just left last week. I forgot the Madrileño inability to wait on the pedestrian signal to walk, but rather, to intently watch the cars and to dart across the street at the first available second. I watch pairs of people walking along the street throwing their hands up in the air as they speak, talking over each other, laughing and taunting the other like they are stars of a comedy show.

It has indeed been too long.
I am not just still in love with this place.
Oh no, perhaps I am more enchanted and in love than ever before.
I simply cannot grasp how I left. And to think- I only crafted this scheme to come here in February! Perhaps I realized- my wanderlust, the atlas in my hands, was always directing me back here.  At least for this taste, for this moment.
I love this city. It's people. It's expressions. It's splendor. The buildings, the concrete squares that line the sidewalks, the little metal tables sitting outside restaurants lining the streets. The trees and how the sun shines through the clouds only on one side of the street. There are so many dear friends here and although we have 2014 technology blessing our friendship, the distance is meaningless and we sit at our old watering holes like we met there yesterday.
I have jumped back in, and oh how free I feel.
I am a happy, happy girl.