St Maarten

Not everything is perfect. Not every smile is sincere. Not every friendship is built on rocks. Not every distance is real. But there are times when perfection and sincerity, friendship and distance all join forces for a moment in time and everything becomes whole. Times like these tear the heart apart from the yearning it feels afterwards. Times like these make the soul dance high above the ground. Times like these get engraved and can never be taken away.

For vagabonds like myself there are only moments of perfection and security. My life is built on these moments in the past or in the future that are only briefly ever reality. Last week. Last week was a moment of reality. Now that moment is only the past, but I mourn not the passing of time but celebrate the existence of it as a memory. Still my eyes swell with tears that appear as a result of the pain parting causes. Despite the fact that I know the end is inevitable, somehow that does not help coping with it. So I sit there ten thousand feet above the ocean, in the dark when it’s light outside, in the cold when it’s warm inside and I cannot help but cry. Flying on wings that can hold the world’s weight, I see only the frailty of my life. I see only how the wheels of the world turn ever further from the direction I want to be in. I see how all the moments of high collected to span over a couple of hours is only what I live for.

For vagabonds like myself home is never a geographical location, but people. My family. My dear family travelling on different ice plates and only seldom bumping into each other. My friends. My precious friends with whom I try to hold hands and reach across the world so that we can make the distance seem a little easier to bear. My friends take turns in who lives in close proximity. Vagabonds will have vagabond friends who only ever get to live close to each other when the stars are aligned once in a million years. Then they part, just like the stars and leave memories and a constant wanting to turn a lever that will make the stars align again. But the fight is in vain and I softly wipe away the salty teardrop. I wish for that teardrop to fall below into the ocean, into the salty ocean and join its family, the equilibrium, the splendid happiness.

Every single one of you my friends has a part of me. Whether you’re on an island dear one with sea and sun and warmth or cold and clouds and grey, you’re in my heart. Whether you’re in cities grand or small, pretty or plain, you’re in my heart. Whether you’re in countries of luxury or need, you’re in my heart. Whether you’re hungry for want or bursting with abundance, I think of you always. I miss you, always.