The Lazy Cherub Enigma: 96 Days.. And the Sleeper now Awakens..

Now seems as good a time as any to end what had begun. Ninety-six days home after ninety-six days on the road. God knows, I wanted to write an ending much sooner but when it was over, I wasn’t sure how. Everything had been so much more than what we had bargained for. By the end of the journey I was exhausted. Emotionally and physically spent. I just wanted to get home. But it never really was over. It weighed on me. Each passing day another crushing stone on my soul.

Every day on the road I read and re-read what I had written. It was a talisman, an anchor. Writing and reading my story gave it far better meaning than the one I was experiencing. There was power in making the story my own; claiming the light from the dark. When I returned I abandoned the story. I could not revisit it or bear to recall it. I wanted to banish all the memory of it because to remember brought pain. So much pain…

All I thought off when I was on the road was how much I wanted to see a friendly face again. I could not wait until I was home and with the ones I loved. Once home, I wanted to hide myself forever. I dreaded seeing anyone for fear they would ask about the trip. To speak of it made it real and I desperately needed for it to not be. My story telling had out did itself – the story became everyone’s story. My story was an awakening for those at home – a chance to live vicariously through a gypsy’s eyes. No one, least of all myself, understood the cost this awakening would bring.

I wrestled with the meaning it of it all. I wrestled with the deep awareness that a journey worth doing is never meant to be easy and that when one is most alone transformation takes place. I knew there was a purpose to this but I was too raw to embrace it. So I let the lights go out and spent the next 96 days cocooning in the darkness.

We ended the trip much like we began – knowing nothing of our fellow travelers other than their shadows. I’ve spent the 96 days since returning wondering what went wrong. What could I have done to change things? Over and over I play the scenerio out and always I come to the same answer – all I could have done was not be me. It was a difficult journey…

I have never been so sure of who I was and at the same time so defeated by that awareness. I was on a journey where everything I was and was about to become was truth. No one really prepares you for the final push though – that final bursting from the cocoon. It is always about how beautiful you wings will be but never about how fragile and vulnerable you are waiting for them to dry. I hung on the precipice of butterfly fruition and complete annihilation sitting in an overland truck driving the Silk Road.

Istanbul ended in the back of a windowless van packed with luggage and foes. Crouching on the dirty floor, I made a feeble attempt at black humor saying this would prepared me for Afghanistan or Syria. I quickly realized the horrible truth in it. Trapped, overheated, overwhelmed and exhausted I begged at the next traffic light to be set free. And there we stood, on the streets of Istanbul. Alone, nauseated, unable to breath. We walked the crowded streets to our hotel and slowly I realized that now my wings were ready. For the next four days I was determined to fly.

It started with a shoeshine. Three months of dirt and agony wiped clean by a man living in a cardboard house. His wife smokes openly beside him and screams “FUCK YOU” to anyone who gives her grief for doing so. For the first time in 96 days I feel like I belong. I want this shoeshine to last forever.

Coffee at coffee houses considered the best in the world. They resided in places no self-respecting tourist would seek out. I relish in the realization that there is no chance I will run into anyone from the journey here. There is far too much color plus everyone smiles. Sitting sipping coffee I hold the pieces of my shattered self in my hands. A million tiny souls waiting to be stitch into a whole human being again. Any journey worth doing will require you to break. That’s the irony of it all – transformation only happens when what you didn’t prepare for happens. Or more to the point, when everything you think you know goes “tits up” and all you are left with is yourself and a shit load of self doubt.

I am still struggling to make sense of it all. I know I am not the same person I was before I left. I seem to be existing in a simultaneous state of profound grief and joy. I lost so much of myself on this journey and yet I find myself feeling unburdened by it all. It seems les about what I have lost and more of what I am becoming. You have to become “something” in end. It’s ether that or you die. All those broken pieces become a masterpiece of a jigsaw puzzle waiting to be made.

There are worse things in the world than being stuck on a truck for 96 days. While I was on my journey others were on theirs – job loss, infertility, divorce, diagnoses, death. All things that would not end in 96 days and certainly not conducive to pupating into a butterfly. The first thing an awakening teaches you is humility. I’d like to say the second is grace but I’m not there yet. Now that I am home and my wings are almost ready I find myself wishing I was a fire-breathing butterfly so no one sees it coming… So maybe the second thing I am learning is anger. Not the self-destructive kind but the motivating kind. The kind where you find yourself staring in the mirror yelling, “I AM THE MOST AMAZING GOD DAM BUTTERFLY IN THE UNIVERSE” and you start thinking about where in the world you will fly to next.

So this is the end and this is the beginning. This journey is now over to make room for the next. I wanted to say good-bye to the Silk Road so I could say Hello to the next adventure(s).

Hello Wainwright Trail

Hello India

Hello world. Get ready. You’re about to meet the most amazing fire-breathing butterfly EVER.