Introduction

Graham

Gordo

Emma

Elise

I remember the night with perfection. I was wearing a gray sweatshirt, the cuffs stained brown from my love of the thing, and we were all sitting around on the gold Victorian furniture, hugging our knees, cold due to the broken heater, warm bellies full of Malbec.  I forget who birthed the idea but once it was on the table our eyes lit up, the pressure in our hearts steamed as the excitement built, our faces pulled tight with promising smiles.

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” said Graham as he leaned forward, his hands clasped, his eyes bright.

“I’m in,” said Gordo who sat on the floor cross-legged, his face a picture of earnestness. Emma squealed her approval, for she has a way of doing that, her big eyes growing even wider as she looked at each of us.

All I said was, “I’m serious.”

There the four of us sat, making deals for the future. It felt like a business transaction taking place—money discussed, time frames, vague technicalities, promises. At the end of the night we knew we had to do it. It would have been so easy, so much cheaper, so much safer, to board an airplane and fly home. A mere ten hours of flying high above unknown places and then our post-college life could begin like a funeral commending the efforts of four zealous, dream-seeking 23 year olds.

For, we had already escaped the reality facing us upon graduation by moving to Argentina to teach English, learn Spanish, mimic their way of life. While our friends submitted resumes and anxiously counted down the days until their parents would cut them off, we moved to a country where we divided everything’s price by three and got paid hordes for the language commodity with which we were born. Nevertheless, home beckoned.

But Graham, Gordo, Emma and I were going to drag our feet the whole way back, for we had vowed one another to travel from the southernmost tip of South America all the way to our parents’ front doors, carrying our belongings on our backs, carrying with us all our hopes and preconceptions about places we’ve only maybe even read about.

Each of us was escaping something, or on a search to find something, probably both. Each of us wanted to break boundaries though, and for what reason we did not know other than it sounded fun and we were still young, brave and full of it. Caution drowned in those last drops of wine sliding down our excited throats and we shook hands. It was going to be an adventure in every sense of the word.

Thus, I present to you a collection of spare thoughts coined during a time of much reflection and travel.