I'm glad you took a moment, Nathan Non Fiction is a treat. It's an interesting concept you've mentioned - one-way v. roundtrip - and in history, it's almost always been one-way, for immigrants, heretics, dreamers. We live in a time when many of us are never truly confronted with that sort of decision, not really, at least until that last breath. That's not a bad thing, perhaps - I wish more people had a choice in the matter - and we can always choose to simply not use that return stub. 💛
Thanks Troy. That's so very true! There's a lot of depth to the concept, even though Abe only briefly touched upon it. It really had me thinking about it a lot, even though the book didn't end up being one of my favourites.
“But then I came to the realisation that there is no off—this isn’t like work, from which I desire and require periodic breaks; this act of fingers and keys and the emergence of words is, fundamentally, a part of me.”
Beautifully written. I relate to this so much. What used to excite me now fills me with dreaded what-ifs and I find myself enjoying being home more and more. Part of this is of course normal, but I have the nagging thought that I shouldn’t give in to it all the way and risk becoming Bilbo before his adventure.
Wow, you're in paradise! Congrats, my friend. And thank you for speaking to the endless what-ifs. I am intimately familiar with them, and find myself in a near constant battle to tame them. I hope to change my type of ticket, eventually.
Enjoy all that lush beauty, and the probably-swifts!
Thanks Chloe. The enjoyment continues day by day. It's become such a paradise waking up here, I'm going to be sad to leave come Monday. But, that's still in the future, whereas I am firmly grounded in the present right now 😁
I once booked a six-week vacation and then never went home. It was a peculiar time in my life when that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and I don't regret having walked out on my old life like that. I am essentially still on that trip.
The Woman in the Dunes is one of my favorites. I love the movie as well.
New York > Santa Fe initially, then SanFrancisco > Barcelona > Madrid, then Granada > Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria, Then back to Madrid and finally back to Barcelona, where I live. I speak English, Spanish and French interchangeably.
Wow, superb. What an awesome (continuing) journey. I wish I'd studied languages properly during school. I can speak a little Spanish to get by as a tourist, but that's about it.
Hey Camila, thanks for the read and comment (and also, my sincere apologies for not getting to your Stack yet this week; scribbling out this post was all the Substack time I've managed).
That's awesome that the book is one of your favourites (thanks for the link, too! I didn't know about that) and even more awesome that you decided to never go home after a six-week vacation! 😮 Where abouts in the world?
The "One way" vs "Round Trip" question struck a chord with me. I am a big one for sweating the details and considering all that could go wrong. I also have a wife who, like yours, keeps me moving forward toward new adventures. Enjoy your holiday, brother. Just don't let your wife talk you into jumping off of a perfectly safe mountain again.
I’m currently on a train from Czechia to Romania on a one-way-ticket, several months kind of post-grad journey, and, as a fellow traveler, I really enjoyed your post! While I only sometimes possess “a modicum of preparedness,” the words of an Orthodox traveler’s prayer help me remain calm and curious: “Help me to see the beauty of creation and to comprehend the wonder of your truth in all things.” Enjoy those rice fields!
Hey Lucy, thanks so much for reading and popping by for a comment.
How exciting to know you're currently en-route to Romania (well, you're probably there now ... hopefully!) I did a 1 month trip around Eastern Europe during the summer break of university and had an amazing time. Romania was fantastic. I hope you enjoy. (Side note: I'm currently reading Solenoid by Romanian Mircea Cărtărescu ... incredible, but super trippy!)
Enjoy Bali! I tend to fall prey to what ifs only before the journey begins, when I could still feasibly cancel everything. Once I'm on the road with at least some sort of itinerary, I'm usually much calmer. That said, using a one-way ticket for the first time in my life yesterday was pretty surreal. There's probably a lot of interesting insight brewing in the background now...
Bali is great! Enjoy your time there. Don’t go into the rice fields though, admire from afar. It’s funny you should mention Dunes! Dunes or one Dune... I am reading one Dune but I may have to check The Woman In The Dunes some time, too! And most importantly, yes, a writer always writes, even when he is staring at rice fields, or out of a window. 🙃
Thanks for this post, Nathan. I have very similar thoughts on travel and working when on holiday. I wrote a short story sitting on the balcony of our apartment on my last holiday. But then I got stung by something that caused my arm to swell up and turn a worrying purple reddish colour so maybe this was the universe telling me to stop 😁
Enjoy Bali. It looks amazing. Hope you have a great time 👍🏼
Eeeep. That sounds nasty. I hope it cleared up all day. Or maybe you should turn it into a short horror story about *just* how bad it could have gotten??
I thoroughly enjoyed this post, Nathan; "the sun crests the horizon above lush jungle" and the image of eating directly from the rice terraces...so beautiful.
I used to travel so much and so easily, absorbing and admiring the life and heart of every place I was lucky to discover. I too noticed a significant change with time and through anxiety; it's as though each decade of life has its own focus and we are brought to concoct what works for us at each point.
I would be very happy to read more of your musings if that worked for you too.
I really enjoy your nonfiction writing voice as much as your fiction writing voice. ☺️ (since your experiments with Terry, though, I never believe what you say at the start until I get to the end though 😅 keeping us on our toes!)
As for travel, this has happened to me as well. I wonder if it has to do with the pandemic. Or thinking more about how I spend my time. Or being a mother. Or having traveled so much - which I know is a privilege - that maybe I keep thinking something is bound to go utterly wrong sometime. I guess this is the writer’s brain we are doomed with and yet I certainly wouldn’t trade it in.
Hope you can relax now that you are there and enjoy the Bali bliss!
Aw, thanks Kate, that's so great to hear. (And hehe, happy to keep you on your toes :P)
I guess it could be any manner of combination of those things. For me, it was certainly an upbringing that, wonderful as it was, emphasised a catastrophising mentality ...
Anyway, yes, uber-relaxed in Ubud 😆
But my apologies for being so behind on reading and listening, I have two of your posts to get to soon!
Bali sounds lovely, especially the rice terraces! I'm glad you're getting time to enjoy. I'm glad you wrote, even if not fiction. You have prompted me to reflect on my own tendencies, on what is such an inherent part of me that if I tried not to do it or neglected it for a time, it would spill out of me anyway.
In terms of travel, I like the IDEA of travel more than I like the effort it takes to actually go. The older I get, the more I don't want to deal with booking tickets, flights, long hours, waiting in terminals, etc. However, that may be more because regular life takes so much energy right now that I have little left over for anything else - I likely just need more margin!
Hey Renee, thanks for the comment and sharing about your own tendencies. I think that, much like the IDEA of travel, the post-travel experience is a similar thing. I think this almost certainly comes from the knowing that things all went OK. I.e. "after the fact, I enjoyed this holiday even more" 😅 But I have to not slip into those modes and be as present as I can.
And arghh yeah, booking flights!! My absolute most hated of activities.
I hope you had a wonderful trip, Nathan! It seems like you and your wife complement each other well, which is so important when dealing with stressful situations, and one can ground the other. I hope in time you'll feel more relaxed about traveling. But I think it's also a normal reaction.
Re the one way ticket? I’ve found that every time you jump, the universe catches you, so it’s definitely worthwhile trying it when circumstances suggest it as a viable option. The pandemic has definitely changed people’s mindsets regarding leaving home unfortunately. Minds seem a little narrower these days, people want the safety of Home.
I’ve just been travelling along the Murray River which divides your state from mine. I had a truly wonderful time. Travelling in Australia is such a joy. We’re so lucky to be such a safe country. (Phone coverage was abysmal though. I am so far behind with my Substack reading. I’ll catch up eventually.)
Thank you for sharing such a rich post. I really enjoyed it. Hugs and best wishes dear Nathan. 🤗🤗😘
Hi Beth, this is such a lovely comment, thank you so much. It warmed my heart reading it this morning. We're back in Melbourne now, but it was a day straight into work and I already feel like Bali was just a dream.
So glad to hear you had a good time along the Murray. And you're right, we really are lucky. It is, on the whole, a very safe country.
Enjoy your holiday, Nathan!
I'm glad you took a moment, Nathan Non Fiction is a treat. It's an interesting concept you've mentioned - one-way v. roundtrip - and in history, it's almost always been one-way, for immigrants, heretics, dreamers. We live in a time when many of us are never truly confronted with that sort of decision, not really, at least until that last breath. That's not a bad thing, perhaps - I wish more people had a choice in the matter - and we can always choose to simply not use that return stub. 💛
Thanks Troy. That's so very true! There's a lot of depth to the concept, even though Abe only briefly touched upon it. It really had me thinking about it a lot, even though the book didn't end up being one of my favourites.
“But then I came to the realisation that there is no off—this isn’t like work, from which I desire and require periodic breaks; this act of fingers and keys and the emergence of words is, fundamentally, a part of me.”
Beautifully written. I relate to this so much. What used to excite me now fills me with dreaded what-ifs and I find myself enjoying being home more and more. Part of this is of course normal, but I have the nagging thought that I shouldn’t give in to it all the way and risk becoming Bilbo before his adventure.
Enjoy your holiday!
Thanks Shaina, great to have you here, and thank you for the restack :)
Hehe re: Bilbo. So true.
It seems like quite a few share a similar feeling. I think it comes down to that old thing of growth from pushing outside of a comfort zone.
Wow, you're in paradise! Congrats, my friend. And thank you for speaking to the endless what-ifs. I am intimately familiar with them, and find myself in a near constant battle to tame them. I hope to change my type of ticket, eventually.
Enjoy all that lush beauty, and the probably-swifts!
Thanks Chloe. The enjoyment continues day by day. It's become such a paradise waking up here, I'm going to be sad to leave come Monday. But, that's still in the future, whereas I am firmly grounded in the present right now 😁
Enjoy all that lush, green presence. Looking forward to seeing you, all tanned, next weekend! 🤗
😊
I once booked a six-week vacation and then never went home. It was a peculiar time in my life when that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and I don't regret having walked out on my old life like that. I am essentially still on that trip.
The Woman in the Dunes is one of my favorites. I love the movie as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu-nLHP5Yjw
New York > Santa Fe initially, then SanFrancisco > Barcelona > Madrid, then Granada > Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria, Then back to Madrid and finally back to Barcelona, where I live. I speak English, Spanish and French interchangeably.
Wow, superb. What an awesome (continuing) journey. I wish I'd studied languages properly during school. I can speak a little Spanish to get by as a tourist, but that's about it.
Hey Camila, thanks for the read and comment (and also, my sincere apologies for not getting to your Stack yet this week; scribbling out this post was all the Substack time I've managed).
That's awesome that the book is one of your favourites (thanks for the link, too! I didn't know about that) and even more awesome that you decided to never go home after a six-week vacation! 😮 Where abouts in the world?
The "One way" vs "Round Trip" question struck a chord with me. I am a big one for sweating the details and considering all that could go wrong. I also have a wife who, like yours, keeps me moving forward toward new adventures. Enjoy your holiday, brother. Just don't let your wife talk you into jumping off of a perfectly safe mountain again.
Hehe, thanks Jim, will do ;)
Here's to adventures with zero what-ifs!
I’m currently on a train from Czechia to Romania on a one-way-ticket, several months kind of post-grad journey, and, as a fellow traveler, I really enjoyed your post! While I only sometimes possess “a modicum of preparedness,” the words of an Orthodox traveler’s prayer help me remain calm and curious: “Help me to see the beauty of creation and to comprehend the wonder of your truth in all things.” Enjoy those rice fields!
Hey Lucy, thanks so much for reading and popping by for a comment.
How exciting to know you're currently en-route to Romania (well, you're probably there now ... hopefully!) I did a 1 month trip around Eastern Europe during the summer break of university and had an amazing time. Romania was fantastic. I hope you enjoy. (Side note: I'm currently reading Solenoid by Romanian Mircea Cărtărescu ... incredible, but super trippy!)
Thanks for sharing the prayer.
Enjoy Bali! I tend to fall prey to what ifs only before the journey begins, when I could still feasibly cancel everything. Once I'm on the road with at least some sort of itinerary, I'm usually much calmer. That said, using a one-way ticket for the first time in my life yesterday was pretty surreal. There's probably a lot of interesting insight brewing in the background now...
Ah amazing, congratulations on embarking on your new and exciting journey. I hope you write about it to let us know how it's all going.
And yes, I am the same: usually once I'm checked in at the airport, all relaxation begins.
Bali is great! Enjoy your time there. Don’t go into the rice fields though, admire from afar. It’s funny you should mention Dunes! Dunes or one Dune... I am reading one Dune but I may have to check The Woman In The Dunes some time, too! And most importantly, yes, a writer always writes, even when he is staring at rice fields, or out of a window. 🙃
Haha, you know, when I wrote the word "Dunes" I was wondering if you'd make a mention of this ;)
I am also, currently, reading about Dune(s).
It had to be dune. 😉
Thanks for this post, Nathan. I have very similar thoughts on travel and working when on holiday. I wrote a short story sitting on the balcony of our apartment on my last holiday. But then I got stung by something that caused my arm to swell up and turn a worrying purple reddish colour so maybe this was the universe telling me to stop 😁
Enjoy Bali. It looks amazing. Hope you have a great time 👍🏼
Eeeep. That sounds nasty. I hope it cleared up all day. Or maybe you should turn it into a short horror story about *just* how bad it could have gotten??
And thanks Dan! Hope you're having a great week.
I thoroughly enjoyed this post, Nathan; "the sun crests the horizon above lush jungle" and the image of eating directly from the rice terraces...so beautiful.
I used to travel so much and so easily, absorbing and admiring the life and heart of every place I was lucky to discover. I too noticed a significant change with time and through anxiety; it's as though each decade of life has its own focus and we are brought to concoct what works for us at each point.
I would be very happy to read more of your musings if that worked for you too.
Thanks so much Mya, that's a lovely comment.
Perhaps these are mostly inevitable things that happen as we age.
Such gorgeous views!
I really enjoy your nonfiction writing voice as much as your fiction writing voice. ☺️ (since your experiments with Terry, though, I never believe what you say at the start until I get to the end though 😅 keeping us on our toes!)
As for travel, this has happened to me as well. I wonder if it has to do with the pandemic. Or thinking more about how I spend my time. Or being a mother. Or having traveled so much - which I know is a privilege - that maybe I keep thinking something is bound to go utterly wrong sometime. I guess this is the writer’s brain we are doomed with and yet I certainly wouldn’t trade it in.
Hope you can relax now that you are there and enjoy the Bali bliss!
Aw, thanks Kate, that's so great to hear. (And hehe, happy to keep you on your toes :P)
I guess it could be any manner of combination of those things. For me, it was certainly an upbringing that, wonderful as it was, emphasised a catastrophising mentality ...
Anyway, yes, uber-relaxed in Ubud 😆
But my apologies for being so behind on reading and listening, I have two of your posts to get to soon!
It’s hard to be free of those things. I hear you and can relate.
No apologies!! Have a great time ☺️☺️
Bali sounds lovely, especially the rice terraces! I'm glad you're getting time to enjoy. I'm glad you wrote, even if not fiction. You have prompted me to reflect on my own tendencies, on what is such an inherent part of me that if I tried not to do it or neglected it for a time, it would spill out of me anyway.
In terms of travel, I like the IDEA of travel more than I like the effort it takes to actually go. The older I get, the more I don't want to deal with booking tickets, flights, long hours, waiting in terminals, etc. However, that may be more because regular life takes so much energy right now that I have little left over for anything else - I likely just need more margin!
Hey Renee, thanks for the comment and sharing about your own tendencies. I think that, much like the IDEA of travel, the post-travel experience is a similar thing. I think this almost certainly comes from the knowing that things all went OK. I.e. "after the fact, I enjoyed this holiday even more" 😅 But I have to not slip into those modes and be as present as I can.
And arghh yeah, booking flights!! My absolute most hated of activities.
I hope you had a wonderful trip, Nathan! It seems like you and your wife complement each other well, which is so important when dealing with stressful situations, and one can ground the other. I hope in time you'll feel more relaxed about traveling. But I think it's also a normal reaction.
Thanks Nadia 🤗
We do, we certainly do.
And of course, all was oh-so wonderful and lovely and there was no need for any what-ifs ;)
Yay! That is lovely to hear!
A lovely article.
I still haven’t made it to Bali. One day.
Re the one way ticket? I’ve found that every time you jump, the universe catches you, so it’s definitely worthwhile trying it when circumstances suggest it as a viable option. The pandemic has definitely changed people’s mindsets regarding leaving home unfortunately. Minds seem a little narrower these days, people want the safety of Home.
I’ve just been travelling along the Murray River which divides your state from mine. I had a truly wonderful time. Travelling in Australia is such a joy. We’re so lucky to be such a safe country. (Phone coverage was abysmal though. I am so far behind with my Substack reading. I’ll catch up eventually.)
Thank you for sharing such a rich post. I really enjoyed it. Hugs and best wishes dear Nathan. 🤗🤗😘
Hi Beth, this is such a lovely comment, thank you so much. It warmed my heart reading it this morning. We're back in Melbourne now, but it was a day straight into work and I already feel like Bali was just a dream.
So glad to hear you had a good time along the Murray. And you're right, we really are lucky. It is, on the whole, a very safe country.
Take care, Nathan 🤗
Beautiful picture and thoughts!
Let me know if you're in Vietnam anytime soon...I live in Hanoi. Could show you around!
How lovely, thanks Zachary. I absolutely will if I'm ever there!
You have a true gift in writing! Enjoy your travels!
Thanks Brian 🤗