Soon I want this time
I will be in a fall season in the apple orchards and back to walking the streets, sitting in the park doing my homework, the hannutslaugh before bed
I spend the day doing these very indexed things with a strong nostalgia to stroll through the museums of Brittany, or stroll through the trees of farmland trying to find my way
soon I will yearn for moments I don’t know why my memory has chosen
Moments of walking, moments that I haven’t walked yet
soon I will want this time
we always want we don’t
maybe life and the seasons are just reminders, modes of time travel
at the same period, years and places before
they are markers of time
I thought a lot about when I started this blog. Time passed crosses my mind as I realize it’s been three years now. At that time, it was the first time that I traveled alone, that I took a plane alone, that I lived in a house of strangers. It was a time that started an era of conflict in who I am: “always leaving”. Ever since I started taking a ferry to college to get my driver’s license, I’ve been back and forth. “Always leaving” can also be this decade of “always moving”, “always adapting”. However, I never think of it as “always start” or maybe “re-start” is more accurate. Maybe I’m looking for different versions of myself, how I’m going to react, how I can optimize my time on this earth and in this body. It’s also a headache to think that it’s been almost a decade since I started taking the ferry to college.
Since living in France, going from farm to farm to mountain skiing – even through COVID, I’ve stayed on the move. I got a full time job with a full time drive to a backyard in Kennebunk, Maine. I then went to school in the middle of a pandemic. My time traveling alone has equipped me well for going to college in the event of a pandemic. I worry about my days freely, happy to be in my own world, doing my own little things. I then decided to take advantage of the long COVID winter break and moved to Jackson, WY to teach skiing. I lived in a motel, on couches. Life was filled with more people and community. I made a lot of new friends and didn’t spend as much time alone. I tore my ACL. Going and being home has never been so difficult. I felt like I had failed myself. I was no longer invincible in this little series of adventures with which I intended to fill my life. It was scary. And then I healed and visited Wyoming again that summer, backpacked around Europe for a few weeks — all that pandemic and injury redemption. During my injury, I fell in love and in a long distance relationship. I would go to school, come home for vacation, and go on adventures in Wyoming to teach skiing or guide rock climbing in the summer. I found myself sick at home, I was thirsty for stability, consistency.
Before coming to Morocco, these are the emotions that I was and that I was fighting. That’s where I am. And I am now in Morocco. Studying abroad, especially in Morocco, has been a dream and a goal of my life. I will forever regret not taking this opportunity. And, I’m still sick at home. For years, it was an unfamiliar feeling. But distance melts the heart, doesn’t it? I have to swallow my pride, as I have to deal with a lot of things, and accept that I am not a person who never gets sick at home. It is normal to feel connected and attached to a place or a community. It’s a wonderful thing.
I thought there was something wrong with me, running away from something maybe. But I just like to try things. I am undecided. I’m motivated. And when I think I’ll find a new version of myself out of it all, I find it’s all cyclical.
I have been living here for almost three weeks.
I have tried to write this blog and write about the details of my life so far, but I have not yet come to think about it or know what to say about it.
I remember how it was around the time I almost transitioned between farms when I was first living alone away from home overseas. I am far from adjusted. And the more practice you have with time and adjustment, the more these things turn out differently. This period is different: four months. So equivalently it will take me about a month to adjust instead of maybe a week before my subconscious gives it to me.
-Emeline
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