tectonics

I have marked the days it has been since I left the Camino, as one week, and then two and three passed me by. I am now officially finished my camino time and well into the lovely travel days I set aside for my dear hearts Mike and Noni. This is us at sunset in Madrid

But there have been things and stuff between me and the day I left. Things and stuff that have shifted the plate tectonics of who I am and allowed me so many many moments I never exactly thought I'd have and yet here we are, here I am. 

 First tumbled out those crucial three days I spent in Burgos, deciding and going and resting my foot (sort of) and writing and thinking. It is a very beautiful city and featured some kindly, beautiful doctors who massaged my foot and gave me a hug when I left. It was the evening after my last blog post that it dawned on me, deep down, from the tips of my toes what I should do next. Go to Slovenia. See my friends there, check in, keep going. Take it one day at a time to figure it out. Once that revealed itself to me, I couldn't contain this jittery caffeine feeling spreading through my body. Leaving Burgos, throughout my brief stop in Barcelona, the excitement shuttered through my veins when I got on my bus. 22 hours from Barcelona to Zurich, and then one strange, orderly, clean, Germanic autumn day in Zurich surrounded by money and suits and a friendly tour, and then 10 hours to Ljubljana. A bus ride where I swallowed my excitement and questions of "what will it feel like to see..xyz everything..again?" and the tears of emotion and how on earth did I get here. 

Because in a way that felt more right then most things I've ever done, I was returning to a place I thought I'd never see again, people I didn't know how to keep in my life. I was returning to Ljubljana, to Slovenia, my exchange home for 10 months, the place that just kind of showed up in my heart one day and didn't leave. The people that taught me love is infinite, really, and no matter how broken you may feel there is space, there is always space for more life, more laughter, more love. To return to a country that held me through one of the most challenging years I'd lived, in terms of heart growth and wandering, to be again in the place that held me as I cried and laughed and figured out how to be alone. 

At 5:14am on Tuesday September 15th, the bus pulled into the recognizable city limits of Ljubljana. My heart jumped in my chest. I got off the bus in the misty rainy pre dawn darkness and everything hit me, flooded me, as I very consciously moved through the steets I knew, I know, so well. 

I took this selfie by the door to my old apartment 

the last time I'd touched this door was a very different predawn day, with my amazing friends holding me close, saying goodbye before Gracia and Gasper and Mattt took me, leaking, to the airport.

I leaned against the yellow building and cried when I saw the castle lit up on the hill, catching my breath in this strange exuberance. Standing in an early morning Prešeren square, shapes and buildings ghosting my eyes. 

And then quickly I was called up by Gracia and while the sun rose behind grey rainy clouds I saw them again. Nejc and Evi and Gracia. We embraced laughing and yelling in the train station, went for a coffee (kava z mlekom) and croissant and just like that I was back. 

Because when I had left in June 2014, I thought I'd left for good. I struggled on my flight home to put it away, to hurt less, to not hold them all so dear. I figured if I could just pull myself together after their friendship and kindness, I wouldn't be so lonely or sad in Vancouver and besides, I probably won't go back so this was just a one time special thing that's it move on. Effectively I tried to put them, put Slovenia, in a box and let it be. Don't touch, don't remember, you'll be fine. 

And for the most part I did okay, the distance really did allow me to dis-remember in a way where I thought I was fine with the 'probably not'-ness of it all. 

But of course, we are not meant for boxes. What we try to put away will always come back until we let it live with us. Even the best of boxing intentions will not last forever. 

It was not until I faced the very real possibility of seeing them, my Slovenian friends, and the country again that it came back completely. That I realized how much they all meant, and how much good they had done for me, for where I was at while on exchange. 

Kind of miraculous. 

And so what followed was really the most random of events as I tried to catch my breath and catch up with everyone, feeling the way deep down that these are now friendships I will never do the misdeed of trying to un-remember again. You are all people I love and will cherish in my life, however and whenever I will see you. 

I went to Slovenia with no clear idea what I was going to do for a month, until October 11th when I needed to get to Spain for my current travels.

I ended up staying, in Ljubljana and Podsreda and Celje and Slovenj Gradec, getting to know the countryside and rural life and small town things and culture and people at a depth I hadn't known before, the way the language is a comfort now, the accents, the children. 

So...what did I do for a month in Slovenia? 

First I ate at all my favourite places in Ljubljana (this sounds like I am seven years old writing a school report) and came out to my friends and felt the way they are awesome people and ate ice creams and bureks (burek 4 lyyffeee) and bought shoes and then attended a unesco peace day event at a primary school in a small town called Slovenj Gradec and danced in a primary school dance and made smores at a Girl Scout campfire and had amazing feminist political conversations with eager 15 year olds and slept in a library and was offered a temporary volunteer job and accepted that. Then it was back to Ljubljana where I rested and reflected for a weekend in the city, wandering Tivoli and kongresni trg and the cobblestones and three bridges I know so well now, feeling how at home I am, how familiar I feel. Resting. Healing. Realizing how I have my done either of those since the end of university, since the start of it.The week that followed my first week back was a kaleidoscope of cozy nights at ziferblat (a pay for time cafe concept with the coolest owner) planning a youth conference for UNESCO youths in Slovenia and speaking about big ideas and culture and art and what it means to be critical and have conversations and feeling empowered and powerful and invincible. I bought diplomacy clothes and organized conference things and then on a rainy Friday we headed up to Celje (where I experienced the best tomatoes of my life......this is not a drill, they were the real deal sweetest most aromatic tomatoes. Mm.) and Podsreda where it was then time to put on this youth conference in a castle. 

This is what that looked like 

with ~20 students 16-21 years old and we talked about global citizenship and privilege and imaginary borders and how do we do things about this, youth mobilization and action and critical media literacy and I remembered why I love conversations like this with kids who care, because it's fucking awesome 

this was the sunset as we drove away, me and Nejc and Evi and Andrey, to Celje for two nights where we explored Roman ruins and a castle

and a whole bunch of rural living and delicious bread and pumpkin seed oil and cozy family life and conversations about politics and Slovenia and socialism and culture and the effects of everything and then just sort of like that another week had past and September was moving by and I found myself on a train and a bus back to Slovenj Gradec for my temporary teaching stint. 

I was greeted and treated mostly with such massive kindness I laughed to myself for the whole two weeks I was there. I had a series of host moms who really showed me the graciousness of small towns. I stayed with Veronika first, the most cheerful energetic woman I have maybe ever met (with, her new favourite, "spoiled" kids--the way children are sometimes the opposite of their parents), and during my four days with her and her enthusiastic attempts at English, I got to sing the hokey pokey with seven year olds and speak of residential schools to timid high schoolers and sit by rivers speaking of "big love" and meet her parents in their small village 

so beautiful and quiet and holding a bright brilliant moon in night skies. 

Over the weekend I stayed with Mojca, the enthusiastic, kind-hearted, wonderful soul who invited me to be there in the first place. Not only was her home the coziest and her two year old the cutest (got a kiss on the cheek from her my first night there-- see mom, I am good with children!!), but the whole weekend was the most picturesque thing I've ever lived. 

From coffee in this magical garden 

to a hilarious photo shoot with these youngsters 

to making štrudelj in the afternoon 

 experiencing this view 

and the sunset in a field with local cows that Ema (Mojca's daughter) excitedly pointed out in her sweet chirping voice 

Wowza. 

And then Antonija took me in for my final week in Slovenj Gradec, answering many a question in the sixth and eighth grade classes. I could probably write a novel about that experience, but instead I'll give you some pictures. 

Like this very proper school teacher outfit I found myself wearing (wut) 

and the view from our afternoon walk, 

and then this selfie with the 24 11year old students for whom we ran an English camp for two nights

AINT THEY CUTIES???

So this takes me through my temporary teaching stint and brings me back to Ljubljana. 

To the ziferblat cafe and Gracia 

To Nejc and Evi and the best ice cream I've ever had ever in my life ever 

To banana cake for breakfast 

and getting on a bus to get on a plane to get on a metro to get to Madrid. 

Which is where I started this post. 

But it is not where I am finishing it, located as I am right now on a bus to Montreal. 

Yes, in Canada. 

But let me go back a second and take you to how I get here. 

 Back to Ljubljana with some very big questions in my heart, and some sort of rattling decisions that came shaking through me in my last few days of teaching. 

Because while this experience taught me so much, and showed me all the beauty and grace and awesomeness of really good teachers, and a really good school, I ended up at midnight during the English camp with my heart racing over the question/statement of "I don't want to do this." 

And it's incredibly difficult to try and describe everything that goes into that statement, but I will try and wrap it up simply.

And quite simply it is that right now, right now I feel the need to be doing, living, manifesting ~politics~ (the rad kind). I need to be acting, I need to be speaking, I need to be listening and protesting. I feel how my heart beats loudly in conversations on politics and "radical" things and the wrongs and justice and society and inequality and rights and the shit, the shittttt we have to smash out of our system. I feel how much I want to put my energy into making this world suck less, hurt less, into questioning privilege and unlearning binaries and calling in a new way of being and raging against the (machine) everything that has been fucked up. Not that this cannot happen in a classroom--it does, often. It needs to. 

     But, importantly, I want to do this in the context of 'Canada'. Because I can't avoid the responsibility that my settler upbringing has revealed in me, that I cannot just run away to somewhere ~else~ because I don't think there is anything to do here. I previously used to believe this, that Canada was dull and apathetic (not totally untrue)and nothing really happens or needs to happen. I cringe in this, but we live and learn. My time in Vancouver showed me otherwise, and my time abroad revealed to me how difficult it is for me to at all be proud or even remotely okay with speaking of 'Canada'. I mean, sure we heaved Steve, but there is centuries of work and learning to be done and undone here. 

Any time a kid would ask me what I will do next, I'd say travel for a while and then end up back in Canada to work to make it 'better' (better as in revolutionize the system and smash the patriarchy and dismantle white supremacy and gender essentialism and decolonize the continent, y'know). And then in a moment of quiet that came after a moment of frustration (because 11 year olds are 11 after all), I heard myself. And I thought, why wait? Why postpone? Why not try and do, now? 

Even pre-Camino I knew I needed to "figure things out", re: my life and life's direction. Reading over my inventory of being post, I even had an idea of this. 

So on Friday October 9th I faced it. I faced what I knew I needed to do and I swallowed what was left of my "but the plan??" and embraced the way it felt to acknowledge what has been making me breathe, making me move for a while. 

Upon arriving in Madrid I cancelled the next step I had planned to make: doing my CELTA in Belfast, to be certified to teach English and then find a job (in Spain somewhere) and work teaching English. That was my plan. 

Instead, we travelled Madrid 

and Barcelona 

and Valencia 

and spoke and spoke and lived our trip as a conversation from one place to another. 

As I fell hard in love with Barcelona and considered going to Australia while by the sea and booking my flights back to Toronto. Because I had to, for visa reasons, and I needed to, for "breathe for a second and don't spend as much money and look for jobs" reasons. 

So then I suddenly had a deadline, November 4th, a willing return to Toronto, to home, the very place and source of all the tension I left so gladly. 

A willing return. 

I have not wanted to return to Toronto in a very long time. Possibly have never really wanted to return since I moved out. 

So, there's a change. 

Change of mind, change of heart, change of plans, and figuring out how to work in and around and through and with all of this. To forgive myself, and accept myself, to meet myself always where I am at. Not to judge for what I previously thought and felt before, because whether it still stands, I am where I am because of that. 

I couldn't write for the rest of the time I was in Spain because I was in such a transient-decision place, my mind changing and weighing all the possibilities. Possibilities that we're all remarkably possible, possibilities I considered while by the ocean 

and at sunrise 

Until I stumbled upon something I maybe want to do, a bit more school, to get qualified for the kind of stuff I want to do. 

And so October, always a weird and difficult month for me, passed, and my travels through Spain were frustrating and gorgeous and everything life is and becomes when nothing makes sense and everything is possible. 

I hugged Mike goodbye and went to Dublin, 

and had the most interesting first twenty four hours I've ever had in a place 

and then saw Vicky again! And we watched rugby 

and pigeons and small children and I got a sense of her life and friends on exchange and I breathed and breathed in the breath of fresh air that Ireland, magical, so truly is 

and my hair went all wild for sunlight 

and then it was time to go. 

Which brings me to where I am. 

Back in Toronto, visiting Montreal for the weekend, and in Canada again for an indefinite period of time, until the rest of things make sense. 

Here are words I encountered on my final night in Dublin, 

over a pint of Guinness and some (fckin perfect) curry chips:

"The time is right for you to make your home an oasis of healing and connection. The time is also right for you to be hatching your big ideas and communicating them with those you might collaborate with. The time is right for you to look at your upcoming year and wonder what you might want to conspire creating with your life. 

There is magic in the written word. Especially this week. Write down what you wish to create in a home. Write down the ideas you wish to develop and delve into. Write down the types of experiences you’d like to invite into your daily life. The more you consciously, verbally construct your hopes right now, the more likely they are to be made manifest."

so I leave you here, looking out the window as the road passes by. 

this is where I continue beginning. 

xx

-k