Going the Opposite Direction in this Too-Big World

Well, fuck.  If I'm going to quote Jack Kerouac in the title of the post, I should probably attempt some kind of stream of consciousness and live with the results.  Live with, but maybe not publish.  See, he needed less discipline, having written on a roll of toilet paper, and backing up and editing being quite problematic.  He also likely needed more command of the English language, as I have already cheated and fixed more than one typo.  No matter.  The road is life, and so are your thoughts.  

I was anticipating recounting some of my latest adventures, which I will inevitably do, but this may be more of a drunken ramble than anything else.  Yes, drinking and writing go hand in hand more often than I've cared to admit.  So has writing and staying up too late on a work night.  Fine...so has drinking and writing and staying up too late on a work night.  

I've been thinking as I've been plotting my next entry that this blog has become a little too well-crafted.  Too much memoir and too little of what I'm thinking at a particular point in time.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but some balance may be in order.  

Stormy skies at the Kotor Fortress

I will paint the picture of myself at this moment.  It is 1:27 am as a type this sentence, and I am sitting in the bar in the common area of my hostel.  I am in Zagreb, Croatia.  Wiz Khalifa is playing.  It smells of...pine? There are 6 people still up with me, and they are smoking and drinking and seem for all intents and purposes to be good chums, supported by long, sordid histories.  But I'd be willing to bet any sum of money that none of them have known each other for more than a week.  As for myself, I am drinking a beer called Ozujsko, which I have repeatedly failed to pronounce correctly to the bartender, and have given to tilting an empty bottle in his direction with pregnant glances of longing whenever requesting another.

How did I get here?  Well, short version is that I hitchhiked from Tirana to Shkoder, then got a cab to Kotor, Montenegro, where I stayed for 2 nights.  From there, I bused to Dubrovnik, Croatia, where I stayed for 4 days before hopping up to Split for 2 days of rotting on a beach and watching movies, and now here I am in Zagreb. 

I'm 90 percent sure this was sunset...

*That brief version of events has skipped kayaking my way into a group of no-good Irish who were inappropriate at every turn, and stole my heart.  It missed skinny dipping in the full-moon shadows of Dubrovnik's ancient walls.  It missed cursing my way through Split's historic old town, barely registering the impressive remains of Diocletian's Palace because I was seriously concerned that the volume of back sweat I was generating would soak everything in my pack before I found my Airbnb.  It missed losing my bathing suit and towel at my hostel.  And my watch on Cwytch Beach.  And my sunglasses...somewhere.  And a raincoat.  

It missed getting caught in a thunderstorm, alone, inside Kotor's ancient fortress on the top of a mountain, and later that day hearing a complete stranger telling me that I was beautiful, and that at some point in the night she was going to kiss me.  I blame (and thank) translation and alcohol.  It also missed going our separate ways just after, and likely not seeing each other again.   And the cuts on my foot (see: Dubrovnik) that have been dogging me the whole way.  That at some point, after getting to know some really great people, we all started going the opposite direction in this too-big world.  

With a little CGI magic, this becomes the Red Keep!

Kayaking around Lokrum Island

Shane and Heather, a couple of the aforementioned Irish rascals.
See you back at Scum Bar?

There's no denying it...even with full summer crowds, Dubrovnik
is fucking cool.

It has also missed the fact that little to none of this outside of, "Hey, I should head to Montenegro and Croatia while I'm still in the Balkans this summer," was planned.  That it has been an exercise in letting go; in not managing all of the details.  

It never seems that way, though, once the ink has dried.  Of course you met these people, and of course you did those things.  With enough time, you'll even start thinking that you intended to do it all.  At the very least, others probably will.  To bring it back to Kerouac: 

"I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness.” 

I don't find existence as hellish as old Jack, but I've sniffed the edges of that emptiness, and I can feel the distance between my actual nights and the nights that reside in memory.  In writing this blog the way that I have been, I've given an impression of things being planned, and somewhat orderly, and making sense at the time.  I wrote an entire post trying to make sense of my failure to summit Cotopaxi after five tries.  That's bullshit.  It didn't make a goddamn bit of sense when I was standing on that mountain, nauseous, weak, and questioning my resolve.  Five fucking tries!  You can attempt to make sense of it all later, but in the moment, you often have no clue what you are doing, or what the point of it all is.  Why am I in Croatia, not knowing a soul?  What am I doing here??  Is it to meet new people?  To experience the world?  To test myself?  To feel utterly lost amid a thousand languages?  The truth is, I don't know, but maybe I will.  Tomorrow, the next day...just as long as I don't start thinking that I did when I got here, I think I'll be alright.  

Entrance to Diocletian's Palace in Split

The narrow streets of old town Split

*Disclaimer: Okay, so the whole stream-of-consciousness thing was fun, but I had to go to sleep.  The rest of this is an uneven mixture of rough, drunk ideas I had scrawled at the bottom of the page and what's been written months later.  I wasn't actually going to publish any of it, but what the hell :)