It arrives unhurriedly, gentle like a whisper, the
yearn to depart. Looking out the window of my room I can see the road I want to
travel unfold at the distance, as in a dream that becomes real in the contour
of the clouds brought by the Autumn that arrives gradually, bringing with it
this incessant need to embrace the road, yet again. It has not been long since
I returned home, a few months only, yet the tingling need to depart assaults me
intensely, pushing me to follow the path I had to interrupt once and again, due
to homesickness or pure chance, but which in the end is my destiny. The days
unfold one after the other, so do the months, and little by little I set myself
in motion, in the clothes I buy thinking of the weather to come, in a
destination I study to understand if possible, in a nostalgic look at my
backpack, faithful companion of my many wanders around the world. Building up
gradually, the emotion of departing is made concrete in the first visa I see
stamped on my passport, then the next, “now it’s for real!”, the dream starts
to become true, again, embraced in pure emotion, in an extreme joy which I feel
together with a strong uneasiness, after all the journey will be long, I will
miss home a lot, where I leave the ones I love the most, the road is an enchanting
world of new emotions and discoveries, yet uncertain, inconstant… Inebriated, the days prior to
departure are a pure mishmash of confused feelings, enveloped in the certain
need to depart, yet clouded by the conscience of all the things I will lose by
not being here, at home. Yet I do not subside, I don’t know how to, as the
force that pushes me is immense, overwhelming, rising from within me, from the
core of my bones, from the bottom of my heart, from the earnest yearning,
from the essence of what I am. Giving up now would be giving up on me, to stay
would be the most comfortable destination, but returning someday will be as
comfortable, maybe even more, perhaps impossible, “who knows?”, I don’t know, there’s no way to know, the only
thing I know is that the powerful will that comes from within me pushes me yet
again to the road, to a journey that will start soon, in a few days, after
Christmas, in the new year that is about to start, “Tomorrow!”, already
tomorrow… I fill my backpack on the run, while I contemplate all I could not do
before leaving, while I have one last 'bacalhau' (salt-cod) to
remember the taste of home on the way, while I say “see you soon” to the ones
who stay, all done in the deeply emotional rush of departing on a journey with
no set date to return and already feeling the nostalgia of not being home. I
will never be able to describe to anyone what one feels when departing, despite
trying in vain to do so in these words. It will be even more difficult to
explain, even to myself, what is this force that pushes me endlessly to the
road, this constant need to depart, the deep longing to travel more, know more,
reach farther, go where I’ve never been through the longest road, perhaps the
most beautiful, for sure an harsh one, yet necessary, yet born from this constant
yearn to become real at the speed at which I give myself to the world and apprehend all it has to give me. I will depart, again, tomorrow, today, each
day, it is today the time to depart again and embrace once more my personal utopia.
Godspeed Luis, have a nice trip, see you on your return, now it is time to
depart, again.
Loulé, Portugal, January 2013
