Pollença, Mallorca

The wind was a perfect cool. Not the kind of cold that leads to angst, or the warmth or springtime, but cool enough to be uncomfortable without a sweater and perfect with one. I had the flu and my body was too tired and feverish to ferry across to Ibiza. Saturdays, however, deserve more adventure than sitting before a laptop or t.v. or lounging in bed, so I showered, dressed and left to make use of my day. I found myself 70 something kilometers north at the top of the island, in Port de Pollença.

It was my first time having the initiative to venture there and seeing about 10 or 11 kilometers of beach reminded me of the south of Spain: quiet, unreserved, and a wetsuit away from kite surfing the distance. The waves were long and shadow. Each time one would slide onto the next a layer of white foam separated the old wave from the new and, divided the blues. The water was magician's blue, like mixing and stirring crystal and clouds, into the depth of the sky, tossing in buckets of glaze and sifting kool-packets over the sea.

Had the flu not taken such hold over my body I would have rented a suit and surfed until my muscles were numb. It hurt a bit to breathe and so, I wouldn't be able to manage.

The bus left from Alcudia to to Formentor and since I'd never been there, I decided I would leave and go there when this view became familiar.

Pollença's beach was something out of the NYTimes travel section, the Cappucino billboards, and the dreams I had of a Eurotrip which, at that moment, was happening. It looked like Tenerife and it made me happy. Despite the wind, beams from the Sun were streaming down one after the next and it was a good day for swimming. The kites were all over the shoreline, stripes and stars, bright colors here and there. The sun shone through their sails, dyed the rich colors they dawned and deposited the rainbow against my cheeks.

Thoughts on: Vernon Hill, Virginia, USA

Why me Lord, why me?

Job probably stared in the abyss wondering, "when do dreams come true?"

Thoughts on: São Paulo, Brazil via Barcelona

I have a friend who has amazing and ironic good fortune and another who is perfectly content with her life of goodwill towards others. My third friend, well, she is a doer and that I will always admire. Perhaps, these are my missing connect the dots. I imagine their presence in my life moves me toward a picture or evolving destiny and how lucky am I. Dots in my life that grow and pull up boundaries of my doubts and fears and drape them along the path of what I can and will be. The support, the help, the bffs.

All to say, I am not incomplete. So then, what I am. Well, I am Barcelona.

On December 12th, I decided to have an incredible New Years (incredible, that means unbelievable, that means unlikely to be true, that means unlikely, that means hardly possible, which implies impossibility.) Myself and a co-worker had travelled together and done the things tourists do: guadi tour, museums, shopping district, sagrada, etc, and so on. We went to the store and bought grapes. We continued filling the time until the next night approached.

There, in the lobby sat two Brazilians from São Paulo whom we'd seen earlier at Parc Güell. They were as amazing and bright as they were handsome and beautiful. We filled the time with stories about our countries and things travellers share. As midnight crept in, the place that was once abuzz with Italians and South Africans, Frenchman and Australians, had silenced in sake of Las Ramblas where everyone would down champagne and avoid the authorities. It was time to leave for the street and we, being two Americans left with them, the two Brazilians.

The streets were dangerously crowded and my sober self was intoxicated with excitement. The air was warm as if each breath had already been exhaled from the person in front and standing space was rare to none. We held hands in attempt to find a space sufficient for four people. I looked to my left and man was reaching in someones pocket and another girl had fallen on broken glass. I did'nt let go of their hands.

We found a little corner beside a pillar and hailed the New Year: 2011! 2011! And one by one popped 12 grapes and smiled to the strangers surrounding us. There were bottles everywhere and the music and chaos of clanging glasses and plastic cups. As the minutes rolled past and the Brazilians longed for a beach we stepped down from our stoop and headed away from the crowd. I walked behind looking around, trying to remember what it had been like: 12 grapes, Barcelona, 2011. I felt happy.

A man five feet away waved at me. I wrinkled my face and kept walking one pace behind the rest, he held a camera in his hand, and in my hand a wallet with an American passport. Before I could call out, he picked me up and began speaking in a drunken slur of whatever language that attempted to slip through his lips. He had picked me up and I began to scream, thinking of the passport that was barely in my grasp. I felt myself thrashing about feeling wild and helpless. His friend was there smiling and then, I heard Portuguese, Portuguese that I imagine my mother would not teach me and English that, I recognized, or rather, two words everyone would recognize. They came over and pulled me away (a strong and deliberate snatch, they snatched me back) and continued to talk truth to the man in between words I did not know but recognized. One stood next to me asking if I was ok, sporadically speaking to the others. I was fine, at least I had been so taken aback, I was not feeling much.

The night went on and everything was fine. I was fine, my co-worker was fine, the Brazilians were fine, everyone was fine and everything was good. Ten months later, I still receive messages from São Paulo, friendly letters and hellos.

I find myself thinking on that night and considering the rashness of poise to defend someone else. What if, they had done nothing? I toss up my fist of my right hand, a turn out a V sign with the other. Obrigado, Ma and Gui, which is thank you in Portuguese.

Notes on Copenhagen, on Brussels, on Paris, on Woodbridge are all notes on Barcelona. There are good people in to the world and I can say, I have met a good number of them. That is what I aim to be, like Barcelona: good people. Let's make a project that the Brazilians began- to spread simple acts of goodness that will end wars and fighting. Consume our thoughts with the idea to take care of others as ourselves, to meditate on the militancy of all things right, kindness that is in us waiting to be set free. If this was our obsession our war, well we can attain world peace. Because like Kevin Garnett, impossible is nothing.

Thoughts on: Washington, D.C.

I had the moment when I realized there is no glory in anything in particular, God, but His glory far exceeds what I mention now: self-discovery. When I left under pretense it had not occurred to me that one place is no more special than the other, all to say Stockholm has broken the mold. Should I digress before I lose my argument? Yes, I think so. The magic is, itself, appreciation not in the wrought iron of any building, the long and oceanic spanning flights, or the attachment to depth in personal resume - finding oneself is complete and utter b.s.

I miss D.C. at night. Driving the distance from my second job to Northern Virginia, or from Northern Virginia to Bates Street and Silver Spring was like a swag bag of good luck and changing fortune. Have you seen the Washington Monument at night? - the proverbial phallic symbol of everything American, and, the emblem of American understanding. We could march with a vengeance, chanting rhymes and misspelled signs, we could fall asleep on a bench beneath the cherry blossoms or live there, and drink sangria mid-day across from Congress. Despite whether we would ever want to do these things or not, we have ketchup to dip our freedom fries. We expect that and it is good. Oh, how I miss America and all that is American.

The tickets I accrued had led me to forget my appreciation of my country and its capital: SE, 14th street, Pennsylvania Avenue, Smithsonian - chocolate city. For all its worth, the process of self-discovery, if done properly is less finding oneself (the very idea is selfish and untrue) rather one defined by retreat and redemption. That being said, it is irreconcilably a misnomer and a good thing. But as we know it, self-discovery is a guided practice and multi-billion dollar industry of plane tickets, and t.v. shows and pamphlets. There are stories and stories of men who leave to find themselves and never search the depths of the hearts they carry. Let us spend a moment to reflect, one moment and then we must continue to live. And when we live, let us live a life of appreciation, and love God. Should we do these things while fearlessly and freely embracing the genious of ourselves, well then we can discover who we are as human beings. Self-discovery is Eve and the forbidden fruit, Adam and the second sin. I say, just let us be and let us be good.

I believe I would understand myself better if Tecumseh, Thomas Jefferson, and Alex Haley would all sit down at a round table discussion and I could listen to the debate and question the irony of my makeup. But because this may never happen, when I drive down 395 and cross the bridge from Virginia to Washington, I will look out over the river, down past the Capital building and Lincoln Memorial then reflect for one moment. I will keep driving and I will silently think, "God bless America, and every place else."

Thoughts on: South Boston, Virginia, USA

There are days when I would rather sit in the house. Paradise is my real life, an enigmatic expression of the everyday: clothes washing, grocery shopping, running on the treadmill . . . like you, I live real life - set before the backdrop of Es Trenc. My goodness Watson, I thought looking over at the clock, it's 3 am in Phoenix and your mother is sleeping! I typed a quick email and signed it less than 3, colon parenthesis, S.E.C. I was tired and all these weird multi-dimensional things start slowing appearing in my thoughts while I watched the reflection of my typing hands on the computer screen. I went back to center and saw that my so-called fierce independence was in fact only a prognosis of what others could not see. I sat alone on the 3rd floor looking over the tree-tops that shaded the living room, and you begin to wonder, what does this have to do with any of my travels. Well, my notepad was there next to me on the study desk and I, against the nature of my own wills, saw a familiar picture on some social networking site as Kurt Vonnegurt started resonanting in my head. I had planned to visit England in a month and Budapest strictly thereafter. Before I confirmed the payment I saw my eyes in the refelcting screen, much like the translucence of a wishing well. I saw his picture and my eyes, my nose, and my cheekbones: I saw my father.

I used to look in the mirror quietly and deliberately, understanding myself more with each study. Looking there at the computer screen, I smiled and two dimples surfaced then poked through those cheeks that concealed the white of my eyes. Everything about me was my father.

I had two more minutes to confirm.

It was a thrill, to chart some un-navigated travels and TS Eliot would be making notes on things along the way, picking up sense. I had began to save for the glory trip in December: the Trans-Siberian pass. But, in the dim of my own eyes I saw something more beautiful than the Mongolian landscape and I knew where the journey would find me.

As somber as the mood could have been as breeze that had now turned cold sifted its way through the window I smiled knowing what to do. As I walked over the Earth I had found everything I needed to be fearfully and wonderfully myself. Budapest and London would wait because the aforementioned was good and sufficient.

I backed a page and entered in my destination which would end, where it began, and rise up again to begin once more. this I confirmed.

There was a place more lasting than stone. It is in my heart and it is in Virginia, it is home and the place of amazing zeugma. I had forgone the rest of the universe for a small and insignificant 50 acres. I imagined holding my ambitions and passions and goodness up over the edge of one of the Tramuntana peaks and letting go of any idols and releasing the things that had once entrapped my own soul.

It was time—a legacy of weltschmerz as old as humanity had slowly peeled away and I, myself, was free.