Photo credits: Art Weekly

I like to travel alone to gain perspective. At one point I was standing at the edge of a ravine up at the Red Mountain, facing the dark blue arm of the majestic North Pacific Ocean. The sole of my shoes were heavily smudged with mud and we have gone past the Army checkpoint to take a break. We parked the truck a few meters from the curve in a road where you could see a small waterfall flowing freshly from a crack in the mountain. We were so high up that you couldn’t determine the end of that waterfall and somewhere in its descent it ran through a thicket where the leaves concealed most of the view below.

We had only been asleep for a few hours. My companion was an engineer on a repair assignment and I just went along so I could travel and think, and visit a long time family friend who had served me all the crabs I could eat during dinner. But most of all, I travel to fulfill the need and there I was on my way back home after having spent time with good company. I was looking at the ocean and this cluster of islets that I remember having breakfast one time at the rocky top of a mound with a group of islander friends.

Sometimes I just do not know what I look for exactly when I travel but I try to find whatever it is that could trigger a spark inside me that had become dormant. Standing with a bottle of water on one hand I could feel the sea breeze trace the lining of my face. The arm of the ocean was so vast and it went around that it felt like we were embraced by it. It was a really beautiful spot from where I stood and it was quiet. It gave me a new perspective. I like to stay in places that give me at least a passing reason to live another day, and there are some days when you just have to hold on to yourself with nothing but pure guts ‘cause you feel there is absolutely nothing and no one out there wherever you are. You run out of reasons to go on any further and life has no reason to keep you, but it just does. Sometimes you wonder if it keeps you to prolong the agony. You lose purpose and as a traveler you always need direction. But then there are rare moments when I find something so wonderful and hope it is that one thing I look for that’s so vital that when you lose it, it just doubly kills you. That’s why I’m scared of beautiful things when they happen. Beautiful things kill me. When you learn to love truly and honestly, it fades away and dissipates like a morning dew, and that’s why all love stories are sad stories. When my father died I would wake up at dawn and see my mama cry lying all alone on her bed, and that’s how I knew all love stories are worse than horror movies where you can’t take anything seriously and the end is more or less predictable, yet tolerable in the absence of deeper meaning.

The Red Mountain I hear has the largest iron deposit in the world. I was standing on top of it. It felt good but I’m not so sure it made me any better. If anything at all, what it was was an irony. I just wish life was that simple- either you are up or you are down, and if you think the world is just divided in half among winners and losers, then maybe life for you is quite simple. Just plain black or white. I’m happy for people who are sheltered and how I wish I was in their shoes, but it is more than just winners and losers out there, if you ask me. There are a hardcore of those who just never learn to quit who are hardened by time. Life forces them to step aside but somehow they always show up to put up a good fight. Life is a great fight. They refuse to go down but the irony is how they’re scared of holding something angelic and beautiful in their hands for fear that they suffer more pain than if they simply lost in battle. So there are those who are in the middle as a matter of preference.

We were back on the road on a bright day and I watched the clouds outside my window reflected on the lake as we drove up the chocolatey slope. We shared silly stories along the way that made me laugh so hard. I said, maybe I should stay a bit longer and see what tomorrow brings. I thought to myself at that moment that maybe if you found that one thing inside you that makes you truly happy, then you are happy wherever you may be. So when you’ve found true happiness it seems you’ve already traveled all places ‘cause the feeling is all the same wherever you go, and whether you are in France- that country of love, or within the four corners of your room with your loyal pup, the feeling remains equally the same.

Most travelers mistake excitement for happiness.

 

 

Mark F. Villanueva