Imagine for a moment, dear reader, that you left home in June of last year. You boarded a plane, teary-eyed after kissing your loved ones hurriedly outside the terminal; you remember walking to your gate, gasping for air, tapping your pockets as if it is some thing you are leaving behind. You remember concocting a story about the airport policeman and his irrational fear of hysterical women. You decide that next time, you can take your time. You can hold your people that little bit longer.

Imagine you tried your damnedest to be brave, to fit into some new place, simultaneously hungry for anonymity and starving for community.

(Am I being brave for me? Or for someone else?)

And your fondest memories of your time in Auckland live in flowers on trees and warm service in small cafés with affordable savory muffins.

Imagine for a moment you decided to take a leap and hike a couple mountains for a month or so.

Imagine following the advice of a stranger at some yoga studio whose two-week unlimited classes trial rate you shamelessly exploited while in town for the 5 days. Imagine after one conversation with said stranger, you booked a flight to exactly where she suggested you go because, well, you’ve got nowhere else you have to be.

Thank Goodness.

Imagine now that you end up in this place which, at its mention, friends and acquaintances alike glow and burst with energy and exclaim,

“Oh! You’re just going to love it there! It’s just so… you!”

It goes without saying that my expectations for Byron Bay were high.

Imagine, though, leaving this place after 9 days (the longest your two feet have been in one place since December of last year) and thinking to yourself,

That was better than they said it’d be.

And yeah,

I almost don’t believe me either.

But on my last night in town, as I sat myself on a skateboard in a near-empty parking lot with an ocean view, I, only for a moment, indulged completely in the cosmic conspiracy to keep me exactly right there.

People miss flights all the time … right?

What would a real life here look like?

My childhood bedroom, a life-size collage exhibition, was plastered with torn magazine pages and retail tags and jewelry and photos and anything else I could tack to the walls. 3/4 of my floor-to-ceiling mirrored closet doors were decorated with messages and images that inspired me.In terms of the content that inspired me, I am undoubtedly a product of my environment; no magazine ever held a candle to the Billabong catalogues and anything mermaid-related couldn’t be cut quick enough.

The girl who grew up in that room smiled so huge that last night in Byron. She zoomed out to marvel at the stars as Wednesday turned to Thursday. She scanned down from the sky to peer into an untidy van with an unmade bed beneath a perfectly maintained surfboard, a window into a kind of life she romanticizes more than any other. She set her focus on her new, fast friends and found herself amazed at how easy other people could be when she herself felt at ease. She cut one perfect image: her friend sitting and strumming his guitar while another of the night’s cast sat and sang, so sweetly. She pasted the scene onto her favorite spot on the wall, the spot most visible from her bed. She pasted the sound, too; the sound of her own voice, free to waver and falter and find harmony. She stepped back to admire her work as she wondered whether any of the neighbors were trying to sleep.

Lately, I am fascinated by the idea that some past version of myself could have never possibly imagined that some future version of herself would be where this present version of me is.

I never used to trust people who told me that they knew they’d be where they are; however, the version of me that came to life in Byron felt inevitable. Some past version of me knew that I would be exactly there, in that dark corner of town, singing Amy Winehouse, exhausted and completely unafraid.

Imagine for a moment that your perfect place, the place your past self knew, the place the cosmos sent you, was the first spot on your year-long journey. Imagine not knowing anything of dirty cities or new languages or mountains or rivers or lakes and just landing in paradise and staying without any knots to catch you when you fell out of love.

I can much more easily fathom 14 days left than 302 days in.

I can see the end of this journey for the first time in a long time.

To what extent does the magic come at the end?

And to what extent is the “end” within my control?

And who even decides the end? The end of what?!? Aren’t we going in circles?!?

Basically,

I bought an insulated coffee cup at the shop outside the yoga studio in the industrial district in Byron Bay

And this thing works magic! I mean! It keeps coffee hot for 4 hours which is basically forever and I have thought for a while now that all I wanted from this world was a never-ending cup of hot coffee but

Sometimes I can’t even drink my coffee when I want to because it’s …

Too hot!

(How rich is that! How human is that condition!)

I never thought I’d say this

Ever

But maybe I need my coffee to get cold sometimes — when I need reminding not only that nothing lasts forever but, more importantly, that I don’t actually want anything to last forever.

— when I need reminding that the endings are the easiest places to insert some big happy moment! Duh!

Anyway,

Just trying to quiet the voice telling me I should have come to Byron sooner ……..

It wouldn’t have felt the same!

Right?

Until You Know Better

Maybe just drink faster? Order a smaller coffee? TBD.

Great Artists Steal

J. Cole’s new album!

Maggie Rogers’ new album!