two years

Two years ago, on the bare wooden floor of my beloved San Franciscan apartment, with the drumming of my fingers on the keyboard echoing in the empty room, I sat, typing the few lines that were my very first blog post.  I had made the radical decision to sell most of my possessions, pack my life into two suitcases and move to Istanbul, a city I remembered fondly from my childhood. There were no plans, only action; I wanted something different for my life.

I was brought up a nomad, and the thirteen years I had spent in the United Stated left me itching for a return to the life I had known; a life of adjustment, displacement and above all, movement. I longed for the challenge of twisting my tongue to a different language, I missed the wonder of learning something new. After spending the last four years of my twenties in the manic grind of the ad world, watching airfares rise and fall online for trips I'd never have the time or energy to take, I realised the life I was living was not what I wanted to live.

I wanted to travel. I wanted to see, smell, taste and feel something new. I wanted to know the world; to meet people and places I would never meet from behind my desk. There were so many questions I wanted answers to— what colour is the Danube in the fall? How does the Barcelona sun feel on a shoulder? What does morning sound like in Kathmandu? Does the Bosphorus still turn that green before it snows?

Two years later, I know that the Danube is a silvery grey, the sun licks your shoulders with a stinging warmth in Barcelona, morning is birdsong, laughter and chanting in Kathmandu, and the Bosphorus is, as I look through the window at this very moment, that pale green. I've had the good fortune of meeting so many wonderful people, and I've been lucky to have set foot on many different soils, but with each step and every new smile, another question arises.

I aim to discover the answer to every question that rears its head, and I aim to eat it, photograph it and draw it. I aim to share my findings with you. Thank you all for your kindnesses, your comments and words of encouragement. It has been a splendid two years full of adventure, and the third promises to be just as harika.