Sep 20 2008
lonely girl
“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese
it was probably 2 in the morning. still warm. i wanted to walk until no end but instead i was sitting on a bench with a friend beside me. across from us were more benches surrounded with companions of a passed out individual who would later start puking in doses.
we ate our peanut m&ms. scantily clad women here, drunk and rowdy group of men there. this was boston nightlife.
“you really beat to your own drum,” broke the silence between friends.
i looked at my friend, surprised and asked her doesn’t everyone just simply do what they want; i could never imagine it any other way.
“no.”
then came in sight, a group of girls all in white cut off t-shirts walking briskly.
i told her to disregard my previous statement. she laughed, hand over mouth, mixing disbelief and delight in that one sound.
a moment of silence. i told her how i often end up doing things on my own, go to places alone, meet strangers and the world seems to widen and everything seems possible.
“you’re brave ilana.”
i was so touched, i really try to be.
“alhumdullah –inshAllah. but it can get lonely. but loneliness doesn’t bother or scare me.”
–
i think about this dialogue now. loneliness does bother me. it’s why i travel so much; am so restless.
or maybe because i don’t fit in.
i once read a quote by Ibn Battuta, after he finally arrived in his birth place, that went something like this: “being a traveler makes one a stranger in his homeland”
ilana