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Travel always welcomes a reset for me. The new environs gives me a new headspace. It’s normally the seemingly mundane trips away from home where I find myself reorganizing the content with my mental / spiritual / technological borders.

I’ve just returned from nearly a week in Indianapolis, and this trip was no different. I’m finding myself with new internal pacing, even a demand for a return for more solitude in this grand city.

Indy made me appreciate Los Angeles even more – not for any Indiana fault of its own – but because I return seeing the city in a slightly new way.

“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – G.K. Chesterton

I return to Los Angeles with a renewed memory of why I love this city. I remember how grateful I am for the rugged edges of cultures sand-papering the borders of each little section of town. I remember how desperately I need to recreate better borders of solitude for my own life, in the urban sprawl. I remember that companionship is not always synonymous with a departure from loneliness. There is largesse in the quiet.

I think I am going to try some new experiments in writing about connection this month. They will be coupled with intentional breakages – putting down the iPhone tether – shutting down the constant temptation to “be connected.”

[Expired 35mm Holga by Patrick]

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