Not yet fifty and single again - J

Journey

Every morning I go to work. This is a condition many will recognize. Often, I don’t know precisely where my work is, as I move around a lot, to remote places. I stay days, sometimes weeks. I have seen some of the most amazing and beautiful places in the world, and met wonderful people, for which I am grateful. 

Periods away are followed by periods back in town, periods filled with office work, where I join the daily flow of commuters going to their offices, shops, workshops and other places where we spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, 46 years of our lives…what a horrific thought and I prefer not to dwell on this too much. I am lucky that I like what I do as a job, as I am sure many people do. So, there is the trade-off: making a living doing something you like and getting paid for it, but…not being free... Sometimes it’s a drag but I guess that’s the case with most things you do repetitively. As long as I am challenged, and can laugh enough, and get paid for it, I am fine with it.

When filling my days in the office, I take a small journey to work. I usually choose between a motorcycle and a car. Today I decide to take the car. The procedure is the same every day. I open the garage door, get in the car, start, and back it out into the yard. I open the gate and repeat the procedure to get the car out on the road. I give a kiss to the dogs, lock the gate and start the car to go to the office. 

The journey is beautiful. At the end of the street, I turn right, and today like every morning, I am struck by the view in front of me. A high mountain, covered in forest, bright green. Some mornings the peak is covered in clouds, so heavy with water they seem to touch the foot of the mountain. Some mornings, like today, it stands out with clear lines against the blue sky. Whatever day it is, it always brings me happiness, and a connection to something that is beyond me, bigger than me.  

Driving up the road, I pass houses made of wood, people selling beetle-nuts on the side of the street. Most smile at me, and I smile back.   

At the top of the road, I turn right. The road is bad, so I go slow, avoiding the potholes and the little kids running around in dirty shorts and with snotty noses. Mothers walk with nets hung around their heads, full of corn, cassava and other vegetables and fruits they collect early in the morning, before the heat sets in. Men sit smoking in front of their wooden houses. I drive past gardens, abundantly filled. Along the road the brilliant colours of flowers, some big, bright and red, others small and yellow, and orange blossoms from the trees. In some months I see bright pink hairy flowers in the trees, which always make me smile in wonder, how something like that is possible. They look like aliens. 

While driving, my mind wanders. The movement connects me with one of the main themes of my life, travelling. I have travelled a lot. Since I was young, I wanted to travel, discover places and move to where nature is still wild. I wanted freedom. The journey that I want to talk to you about started when I met my wife. But there are some things that I need to share first, that led up to that point in my life.  

As children, our parents took my brothers and me on a holiday to Norway. I was twelve or thirteen I guess. During that holiday, I found myself in a rescue boat, for a little trip on a fjord. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful, as I remember it. Surrounded by high dark-grey mountains on one side, open see on the other. The dark blue water not only looked cold, but also felt cold. It was as if I could feel it through the boat, entering my body. I remember that I was very taken by the looks of a girl on the boat, she must have been just a bit older than me. She was beautiful and as a youngster that opened something in me. The beauty of the land and sea, combined with that girl with her long brown hair, somehow made me decide that I would not stay in my country, that I needed to go and find places in the world where this beauty exists and where I would be able to feel a connection like I felt at that moment in that orange rescue boat. My fate was set.