So, I have already embarked on what I have labeled to be my "Gypsy or Nomad Summer". It started last Saturday with a night at "Life in Color" (DayGlow), leaving me in Seattle with one of my good friends. I'll fill you in on those adventures later.
I've been contemplating on writing a blog for awhile. Especially once I decided to have a nomad summer. I've tried numerous other times to write a blog, but I never had a good enough platform, or something solid to write about. Even this time I was skeptical about starting this travel blog. What if I ran out of things to say? What if I went on this once in a lifetime experience and failed? What if I forgot to write down the important things? What if I was to weak to write down the important things? Blah, blah, blah. You get the picture. But, just now I was walking a couple blocks away from the house that I am staying to get a Shawarma and I had the oddest encounter with a homeless man around my age. The encounter itself wasn't that odd, I guess my reaction was.
Long story short, I walked past this young guy sitting on the side of the road, he was dressed in dark, tattered clothes. As I passed him he asked me for money. I quickly lied and said that I didn't have anything, but to have a good night. This wasn't weird and this wasn't the first time someone had asked me for money today. Heck, it probably wasn't even the tenth. But, as I walked away from him and got my food, I couldn't stop thinking about him. I couldn't shake him from my brain. I don't know what lead me to it, but I ran home, grabbed a dollar from my wallet, and headed back over to where I passed him. He was there still, and yelled at me from a distance, teasing me for walking past him before. I responded with a witty rhetoric and then gave him the dollar, and wished him a good night.
In that short encounter I experienced the weirdest thing. I couldn't stop thinking about his eyes and his smile. Something in them reminded me of myself. There was something oddly comforting by being with him. It probably doesn't mean anything, but at that moment I realized that the things that I would see and experience would be implicitly valuable to me, and nearly indescribable or discernible. At that moment I decided I needed to write a blog. To document these experiences for myself, and to help me recognize and realize why certain things are important to me. If by some chance someone else reads this and finds value in it for themselves, that's amazing! I sure hope that someone does, that would make it even more worthwhile. So, please read. Come with me on a Nomad Summer. A summer on the road. It will be one hell of an adventure. An adventure of self discovery.
