This morning — if you delineate morning time by technicalities like midnight to mid-day and not as the period that comes only after 8 hours of deep and restful sleep — some feeling wrested me from a light veil of sleep, my head under a Floridian-kind-of-heavy jacket, one too light for the winds of March’s Macaronesian Islands but certainly too heavy for Angola in April

now I know

And never sooner than now

Can I ever know

It seems

Will I ever no longer be scared before I do scary things?

Will you ever read my writing? 

Will my writing ever mean anything to anyone?

It was not an outside feeling, no; it was not the old lady in the middle seat whose shoulder pressed against my flat back when I turned it to her, my legs draped over my armrest — space enough between the window seat and the window for my shins side-by-side, both sets of toes pointed; far too much space for a more classic leans-her-head-against-the-window approach to airplane sleep. I panicked as a sat, as the older lady scooted in beside me, having realized I left my neck pillow in my pack, which was now in the bin above me. It was far too late. It would have been a whole thing. What’s a little discomfort? 

I like to test my own metal — I, like most of us, like to see what I’m made of from time-to-time. Or I like to hear myself complain. Or I like to use anecdotes of challenge to pretend to you, dear reader, that my life is hard.

I am a kitchen’s worst nightmare in that I will most certainly order the one thing on the menu no one has ever ordered — like Lupini beans. And I almost never do it on purpose. At least if you ask me if I do it on purpose, I’ll tell you no it’s that I actually love lupini beans. for breakfast. At the airport.

I batted .300 at the restaurant: one of the three items I requested were in stock at the airport outlet which I could have mistaken, if I weren’t of course in an airport, for a hardware store. Or a mechanic shop, judging by the branding — saturated with grays, blacks, and cobalt blue with a corner-less font and an “ex” at the suffix of its name. a name resonant of a pest eradication product, I thought.

So, I ordered grilled chorizo. For breakfast. At the airport. And two bottles of water because the inside feeling that wrested me awake was certainly severe dehydration, the lengthy cells of my seeing systems, where my eye ball connects to my occipital lobe maybe was starting to fray as my worn boot lace. Or as the draw string no longer holding up my favorite green pants. 

I scarfed down my morning chorizo and pickled cauliflower as the Angolan side of the sun, new to me, beat down; I have reapplied my deodorant but haven’t brushed my teeth in over 24 hours and the oiliness of my face gives me an anxiety I cannot explain or the smell of my socks on days like these is rather criminal.

I asked for the bill. My card was declined. Unauthorized. No, they don’t accept tap to pay and sure, you can try the reader inside but it’s the same reader — machine, at least. Different human, of course. Same blank eyes whose contact I choose to avert. 

“Can I pay you and you pay my bill?” I asked my server. Short answer: no. Longer answer: something in Portuguese to his co-worker over his right shoulder. I speak (understand) conversational Spanish and severely mis-judged my ability to navigate the Luanda airport with zero Portuguese in my arsenal. Is this what Harry meant about those American Girls? A special brand of ignorance. My flight attendant’s frankness this morning upon our descent alerted me to my own before I got into this mess…

Assumptions I made:

I speak enough Spanish and besides, everyone speaks English 

Everywhere accepts contactless payment or at least

Everywhere accepts Mastercard or at least

Everywhere will accept US dollars and if not,

The international terminal will have somewhere to exchange cash and for sure then

I can hire a taxi for my layover, Or at least 

I can download the local ride-share app

And my international plan means 5G data, obviously! And if not,

There will be wifi at the airport

And if it’s shit, I can always pay $20 to get in to the lounge and they’ll have wifi

Things I like about the new Luanda airport:

Two bottles of water for 1 Euro (which is one coin) (which I did have) 

High ceilings 

The young man with the smooth face and shy smile who told the South Africans in front if me, ‘no… uh… this is for the, uh… expensive tickets…” when they presented their economy tickets at the lounge entrance

The same young man who used different language to reject my entry, because he knew I had already heard…

Things I don’t like about the new Luanda airport:

It’s far from town! 

And I can’t find the exit!

And the new Luanda airport I enjoy because

It’s sitting me down to write

And wow, I miss writing like this. I miss making the time. Or I miss when time makes me, as it is right now.

Thank you, Goodness.

Yesterday at 5:55am, I started this journey in Ponta Delgado. And flew from there to Lisbon to here, Luanda. And TAAG cancelled my flight to Cape Town but rescheduled it for much later in the same day and I scrambled to try and fix it yesterday when I got the text. I considered all my options. I considered how I could make things a bit more optimal, comfortable, quick. I considered the trade-offs. I became much more elastic — my spend cap sky-rocketed. I considered not only buying a new ticket but a business class one! A wild thing this mind. This stress I experience. This stress I create.

I lean on my friend’s advice these days. Thank you.

I want to be somewhere simple and un-manicured. Where things don’t work and people sometimes do. I want to be somewhere that knocks me loose from my auto-pilot assumptions. And shows me the insidious absurdity of perpetual, unsolvable stress.

The man who owns the roastery in Victoria Falls said to me, “don’t work too hard,” as he knocked off for a round of golf.

The man in Fiji said to me, “we all make choices.”

Should I start listening to more women? 

I have PCOS and it’s my new favorite topic — I’m sure you’ll hear lots more from me about it. My closest people will get sick and tired of me exploiting my one hard thing for pity, surely. Sorry. 

In my examination of why this PCOS thing is suddenly a big huge deal, it’s because now happens to be a time wherein I have newfound space and energy and motivations and fire horse energy to imagine how present Alex can support future Alex. The idea of success is on my mind — success as an individual’s ability to adapt to her environment,

Specifically

Maybe even thrive, actually. 

My friends are getting pregnant and PCOS could affect my ability to ever even do that if I ever even have the chance — if I am ever so lucky to feel ready and open and loving in that way. And PCOS makes me sensitive to the world in ways that others are somehow not. And it’s all of our first time’s here. This I am beginning to not just know but to understand fully in my body. Learning about and treating this hormone disorder is forcing me to trust that my body actually knows where I feel calm, what circumstances breed success for a being like me. 

I am of a greater species and I am also a unique individual. I contain multitudes and so do you. And there is a place for me and I am still finding where that might be and what work there will be for me there and if there is a settled place for me then, and only then, will I come back to base; my body will have energy for that which takes lots of energy. Like ovulation. 

What if things aren’t supposed to be this easy? What if it takes 

Making it harder 

On purpose

Trading convenience for

What?

Depth

Complexity

Nuance

Richness

Beauty

Meaning

Hard work and 

All that is in the work itself 

And what if this is the day I bought many months back — 5 months back I bought tonight. Today was the day I arrive to Cape Town. And it became “the beginning of my soft move to Cape Town” and now that the day is here, it is just a day that looks nothing like anything I could have ever imagined. And what a silly reality — this one where I plan and plan and plan months in advance only to get to the day and brush it off as if hours on the clock and or steps in the health app are ordinary. As if the day is granted simply. As if the day is not a product of hope. As if the day is not the culmination of chemistry, divinity, maybe. 

What does this world need from me? For me to dance — I swear that’s all it’s asking of me. That’s all I can hear clearly, at least. Maybe to write, too. And to get comfortable and still but only when it feels safe to do so. To run if it will save my life. I know better now than ever before where I don’t want to be. 

What if life loses romance

As you age because you learn too much in the head? 

You start to know too much and you separate the science from the art

And you decide that they’re really onto something when they say that falling love is just a defense mechanism — some distraction or some indication of a void 

But what if we’re being conditioned to find what’s wrong with us?

What if there’s nothing wrong with us?

What if there’s nothing wrong with falling in love? Over and over and over again?

It’s not that we get smarter 

It’s that we step into whatever shoes they’ve left open for us

Obedient to what end or

For what reward?

We go solid, rigid 

We go ruled by mealtimes

We go led across new countries by a man with a flag and a name tag and a microphone

When we should liquify

And sink 

And tumble in waves 

Instead of standing heavy

in the shoes they’ve left open for us,

We should go liquid,

Melt and spill over the sides 

Like lava, illumined 

We should show our

Too-big spots 

In case our expansion permits 

Others’ 

Or maybe

We’re not here to be example

We’re not here to save anyone

Maybe we should show our bigness 

Simply because shrinking poisons us from the inside out

What swirls in you is magic

What happened some years ago still lives inside you

In cob-webbed corners that go un-dusted until 

Until

Perfect undulation of the spine

Side-body stretch, steeple mudra

Hip wrapped back and back and back

What’s true is 

There’s no one coming to save me

From myself and all that feels 

Big and scary to the me who knows no better

No more than winged creatures of islands

Carrots suffering gigantism

I want to say, also

no one is falling in love with me

I want to say it so you’ll

Feel bad for me

And I want to say it so I’ll

Believe it 

I want to say it to set me free

Until You Know Better

Island cheese

Sibling trip

Hand-rolled cigarettes

Great Artists Steal

I am listening to Ross Gay again and his cadence feels like rolling around in a field of grass where there are no ants or scary things just lush, soft greens and wildflowers