Travel

No time for pleasantries in a place where wondrous nights fleet with the hungover haze of the fast approaching morning. No time to talk about anything but everything. Desperation lingers in every word. Strong relationships are formed in hours. Expensive vodka is bought. Music is shared. Everyone hugs and I fret for days about never learning the last name of a girl named Mara. In a place so unfamiliar, you seek to know people. Not meet them, but know them. And so you open up, you tell them how they look beautiful in sweatpants, and how they live in a paradise you wish you never had to leave. And they tell you how different cultures deal with death, how they dream in English, and how American men stare at them when they walk down New Mexico streets. And in the bathroom mirror at a bar in Den Hague I see myself smile. A smile conjured by this mysterious comfort and love for beautiful strangers.

Then the morning comes and you miss the people you've just met. You know that the hours you've spent apart will increase until you've lost count and they've forgotten your name. Still, you feel that you know them, and that they know you, in ways no one else does. And so you get out of bed wondering who you'll meet that evening. And you feel okay.