Becoming myself.
That's what I'm doing in Portugal. I wanted to find myself here--in every cobblestoned street and every whispered word. In the sunshine and the leaves and the beach.
Did you know that if you lay on the beach with your feet in the waves and your eyes closed tight, that you can feel the world turning? Did you know that to be alive is to swim in the ocean, to walk along the shore, to chase a soccer ball down the boardwalk? Do you know what it is to find yourself? Us restless, weary travelers, we spend money and time and effort trying to find ourselves. But we're looking in the wrong place. Perhaps it's easier at one latitude or another, but we realize at some point or another that we are us already. There is no finding to do, no desperate, frantic search to be finished before time runs out or we get too old or too tired to keep looking. We are in the ocean and the sky and the clouds. In the mud and the trees and the people. There are pieces of us everywhere, but we need not collect them all. Some are content to stay where they are, making us find them in ourselves before we can find them on the outside.
And everyone we meet is a reflection of ourselves. Especially those that we don't like. It's human. And we have to be okay with not being understood by everyone, including ourselves. How else will we fail without needing to justify it? How else will we be free?
Smile at a stranger today. And be a little eccentric. If that's you, of course.
That's what I'm doing in Portugal. I wanted to find myself here--in every cobblestoned street and every whispered word. In the sunshine and the leaves and the beach.
Did you know that if you lay on the beach with your feet in the waves and your eyes closed tight, that you can feel the world turning? Did you know that to be alive is to swim in the ocean, to walk along the shore, to chase a soccer ball down the boardwalk? Do you know what it is to find yourself? Us restless, weary travelers, we spend money and time and effort trying to find ourselves. But we're looking in the wrong place. Perhaps it's easier at one latitude or another, but we realize at some point or another that we are us already. There is no finding to do, no desperate, frantic search to be finished before time runs out or we get too old or too tired to keep looking. We are in the ocean and the sky and the clouds. In the mud and the trees and the people. There are pieces of us everywhere, but we need not collect them all. Some are content to stay where they are, making us find them in ourselves before we can find them on the outside.
And everyone we meet is a reflection of ourselves. Especially those that we don't like. It's human. And we have to be okay with not being understood by everyone, including ourselves. How else will we fail without needing to justify it? How else will we be free?
Smile at a stranger today. And be a little eccentric. If that's you, of course.
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