Acknowledgments

Recently, floating in the bathtub-temperature Indian Ocean a few feet from shore, golden light pooling in the azure waves around me, friends hooting and hollering as we swam home, the sun setting over close palm trees on shore, I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for every decision I’ve made that’s brought me to this moment. This feeling has remained, painting my days in Ushongo Village with a pastel, nostalgic light, as though this were the destination my recent life has brought me to. 

In the same vein, these feelings have led me to consider the many people who’ve had an impact on my life, my decisions, the many inflection points of my life that have made me the person I am today. I am learning that there are many ways I can make my own peace amidst discomfort, and that practicing gratitude is among them. It is in this spirit that I dedicate this blog post to just a few of the characters of my life, an ever-incomplete list I can only scratch the surface of. 

To my parents, for so many things I couldn’t possibly sum up here. In this instant, though, I say thank you to my parents for letting me go. For always being receptive to each new whim and idea I’ve picked up and sometimes dropped, for never saying ‘no’ too soon, for letting me figure it all out. For letting me leave the place I love the most, and also the place they’ve waited so long for me to attend, in order to pursue this crazy, half-assed idea of a year spent under the equator, exploring the world. For instilling in me a sense of independence, the deep feeling that I actually can do anything I want to do, that nothing is impossible, and that the world I love will wait for me at the end. For doing this over and over again, this letting go and letting live. For letting me shape my young years in a way unlike my peers. For loving me unconditionally. 

To Brown University, that ole rascal, for letting me leave. For letting me craft my college experience to include only things I want and nothing I don’t, for being open and flexible and welcoming. For being a place that has taught me plenty these past few years, often not in the classrooms, but from the spectacular people assembled on those greens and in those classrooms, and in the experiences I’ve gotten to have near and far as a result of my exceptional education. I am not often grateful enough for this part of my life, but I’m getting there. 

To the friends of mine at Brown University, for not hating me too much last Spring when I told them, teary-eyed on the floor of my dorm room, that I had to do this. For waiting for me, for signing leases, for keeping me updated on the hottest gossip on campus. For being some of the most dear people in my life, and for reminding me that I still exist, even from all the way over here. For filling my idle mind with sweet memories of our time in the same place, and dreams of when we share space again next. 

To my brothers, for going first. For leaping off the edge of the cliff and into the unknown of faraway lands, India and Nepal and Australia. For always texting me when Mom tells them to, for drawing the map of what an interesting and interested life can look like. For all going through long distance relationships first. For shaping the best parts of my personality, and mercilessly bullying (or trying to bully) the worst parts away. For being my strongest role models, and, deep down, my biggest cheerleaders. 

To Tiger, for letting me go, too. For knowing that, although my being this far away is the last thing either of us wants, being here is what I need to be ready to go home, be home, and stay home. For making his own little life while I’m away, for always putting up with my grumpy, moody late night phone calls, for saving all the best little jokes and stories for me, for always telling me what the weather’s like at home and how the dogs are doing. 

To my grandparents, who instilled in me my love of the ocean, and were the inspiration for this post. Recently, sitting on a becalmed sailboat in the middle of the Indian Ocean, salt-whipped and sunburnt, I recounted story after story to my friends about my earliest memories on the ocean, the island rocks I clambered over, the endless books I read tucked into the snug cockpit of the beloved boat of my childhood. It is these trips that made me love the ocean the way I do, the way I can’t live without it, like air or food, a curse that will always keep me coastal. It is these trips, and their love of seeing the world by water and wind, that has shaped much of my life since. Their love has brought me here, to this warm and salty sea in a country famous for much else, and it will keep me coming back to the sea for the rest of my life. And a more general thank you, for being such fabulous world travelers, always returning home with stories from the best and worst of it, for their astute and sharp opinions on the world, for encouraging me to take off on my own, for not acting too sad when I have to leave that perfect white house in Waldoboro every September. 

To my friends Neil and Ryan and Sam, for making this week one of the most luxurious, spontaneous, sunny weeks of my life. For all of the flips off of a boat, endless games in that becalmed sea, the late-night chatter and for not making fun of my sunburn too much. For being one of the best things about this new place, one of the things that has made me feel at home like nothing else. I am lucky to have met all three of you, and every other mzungu I came to this country with–my life will forever be a little bit brighter because of you all. 

To my new rafikis of Ushongo, for being welcoming with their time, forthcoming with knowledge about their home, for climbing coconut trees for us and renting wooden sailboats. For plentiful Wifi and hearty breakfasts and good coffee and cheap chapati. For teaching me how to drive a motorcycle. For those first few laughs of new friendships, the ones that make you homesick in the moment. 

To myself, thank you for taking the path less traveled. Thank you for doing hard things, thank you for going through life with your arms full and your eyes open. Thank you for writing about it all, even when you don’t want to, or have to for that matter. Thank you for being patient with yourself in the low moments, for the gratitude you’ve worked hard to cultivate, for learning how to love learning again, bit by bit. 

And lastly, a poem, itself a note of thanks. A family favorite, re-sent to me by one of the above, ocean-loving grandparents the other day. Recently read over dinner with new friends who increasingly feel like old ones, all of us silently reflecting on the many Ithakas we have learned to love. 

Ithaka

By C. P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.