When I've traveled in the past few years, it hasn't been to get away from anything. I keep going back to Mexico because there are things there that matter to me. But in the end, the place I'm really visiting is myself. I go away because it makes me feel more alive than anything else does. I go because I sense my own existence more than I do in my day to day life. When I'm somewhere new, it is as if I can feel the edge of my body outlined against space; but paradoxically that outline is not a boundary, rather its an edge that seems to fold into something much larger than I am. I expand. I go away because I love speaking in a foreign language. It means that I have to think hard about what I say, that I can't take the meanings of words for granted. I go away because my life takes on an acutely articulated sense of purpose. Look. Absorb. Taste. Feel. My body feels like it belongs to someone else even though its never been more my own. I feel more like an animal and more like a human at the same time.
