worldbuilding
where do you belong?
‘I’m off!’
‘Ooh, where are you off to?’
‘Few days in Magaluf, few days in Corfu.’
‘Oh nice. Wish I was coming too.’
‘Yeah, sorry. I don’t really want you there. You’d bring the mood down to be honest.’
One suitcase on the bed. The sun shifted, the shadow gone.
Podcast
Every 6 months, I like to have a Big Think About My Life. A whole day set aside, planner at the ready, I stare at the blank pages full of potential and promise. I treat this process like I’m writing a fiction novel. What will my character do, what will she see, who will she be, how will she grow? Will four A5 pages ever be enough to answer these questions? For now, it’ll have to do. My vision board becomes a new world for me to inhabit. Visceral images, evocative words, and pleasing aesthetics act as a portal into the realm I will occupy for these next few months. Anything is possible on paper.
Would life be better in Sydney?
At 23, I moved to Tokyo, Japan. After graduating from university with no job prospects and no concrete plan apart from ‘start a fashion magazine’, it seemed like a good idea. The only sure thing in my life was fashion. At that time, my style was my entire identity. It informed my friendship groups, my ambitions, my worldview. I embodied the fantasy of the clothing I wore. It was not a character or a persona. I think it was a part of me that wanted to shine.
A city characterised by the transience of its populace. Somewhere to be when you’re young and hungry for success (and food), and everyone is there to make something happen. Best friends made in the space of hours, bonding over a white peach sour in an izakaya1 inside a nondescript building. Lamenting the restrictions of a life lived abroad while shouting your dreams in each other’s faces. Proudly exclaiming that you uprooted your entire life to move halfway across the world as a 20-year-old with nothing but ideas. Careening together down the back alleys of Shibuya, hoping to make the last train, hoping that you’ll see each other again, hoping that you didn’t meet them at the end of their time in Japan, hoping that you both make it happen.
It’s the place to be experimental. Identifiable in its juxtapositions, encouraged to be totally yourself in all aesthetic recklessness and still be a sensible citizen who conforms to the status quo and signs on the dotted line. It taught me to have big dreams and do everything you can to follow them through. You knew that things would always be tough, the system was stacked against you, and those goddamn visa restrictions would mean that every move you made had to be planned down to a tee.
For almost six years, I was somebody authoritative, accomplished, proficient in a lot of things (event manager, website designer, video editor, photographer, writer, you name it, I did it), fun, fashionable, well-known in fashion circles. I was also burnt out, stressed, tired, irritable, and losing faith in my dream.
Tokyo was perfect, sometimes too perfect. There would be days I had the urge to walk down the road and scream to break the silence. The peaceful train rides became stifling. My mind and body changed, and I no longer fit the One Size clothing or the required conformity necessary to exist. That’s when I knew it was not the world I wanted to live in. My time was up.
And so I returned.
At first, it was a struggle to get back into the rhythm of the city. I didn’t understand how to move with the crowds. Eventually I acclimatised. I swapped my platform boots for pink Nike Shox.
London is not perfect, it never has been. And this is why it’s where I need to be. Unlike Tokyo, if you fall here, you fall hard. There’s no safety net, no order, no profuse apologies when the train is one minute late. To me, London means more freedom, more mysticism, being louder and rambunctious, days full of random encounters. With ultimate freedom comes choice. It’s a tough city, and you need a titanium backbone to get by. So I’m putting into practice the skills I learned in Tokyo. Knowing that I shape my environment as much as it shapes me. Here, I have to grow into a version of myself that is capable of conquering my own limitations. I know I can do it all, but I need to do it right this time.
Do you daydream? with Kay (scottishbambina)
At every moment, I am thankful. I am grateful for the tiny joys I find. The bits where I get to breathe. It’s the place where someone will stop me on the street to ask if their lipstick is okay for a job interview, where someone shouts ‘Merry Christmas!’ to fellow passengers before getting off the bus.
Strangely, I’ve gotten used to the rain; it’s not so miserable anymore.
You don’t have to move countries to find yourself, and I don’t actually recommend it. No matter how far you go, your problems will always follow you. But you can microdose these formative experiences. Travel locally and internationally, both serve the same purpose.
The world is exhausting Kay (scottishbambina)
Travelling is just as much about exploring the external world as traversing the internal plains of the self. Move through the world to discover and rediscover all of the different parts of you.
Question: Who do you take with you when you travel, and where do you go?
A. You, your friends, a beach resort.
B. Your inner child, friends that will never leave your side, a home away from home.
Both are correct.
To travel is to explore. Exploration is to discover. Our world is vast and diverse, and we are so privileged to be able to get to the other side of the world in a day or two. So take the time to explore. Hotspots and hot travel tips are plagued by overcrowding and queuing. Barriers separate us from monuments of awe. Consuming what we know to avoid risk. Why do you want to see what everyone else has seen? What’s the point of adventure?
New experiences are steeped in uncertainty. A willingness to try. We find new places, we find people, we find parts of ourselves that we never knew existed.
‘Remember when we…’
‘Remember when you…’
Remember when anticipation brought elation.
A short piece I wrote in Sydney
Understanding where I want to be, through journeys.
People watching in different places. Cafe in Sydney, Café in Paris. The sounds, the people, the mood, the weather, it adds, it subtracts, it expands who you can be at different places and different times. Trying to decide your life’s trajectory in one moment over a juice. It’s confronting and hopeful.
“Pleasant” is the word that comes to mind when I am watching the world go by. It’s fun to imagine. To believe. To dream. To hope.
There are a lot of places to explore, and we can’t see them all. Home is not a ‘where’.
I wish for the glow and romance of Paris, the embrace of Sydney, the freedom of London, the personal power of Tokyo, the breath of Quito, and the ability to feel like myself and more at all times.
Shima ranks European cities. 1. Nice 2. Paris 3. Amsterdam 4. Venice/Barcelona 5. London
I don’t want to stay in one place forever but I want a home. A sense of belonging to the natural, material world. I live in my head and on the ground.
Where do I begin? A never-ending search for the gaze of life and the breath of vitality. To be found in the city streets and the peaks of mountains. I’ve been so high up and still not known where I am. The only thing that binds me to this life is love.
I think I will have to settle with finding myself over and over again.
Do you know what it’s like to be alive and bound to nothing and no one? No city can contain the never-ending reach for meaning.
I feel like I could change the world if they’d let me.
Would 3 months be enough to dig deep and find a sense of belonging? I’ve been looking for myself my whole life, on and off. If I spent 3 months on my own, would I find the answers? Would I go mad? Would I decide it’s not worth the time? Would I enjoy the peace and quiet?
Where am I meant to be? Right now, my own head. Reality doesn’t match my worldview. If I could muster up the courage to be somewhere else, would I be someone else? I can’t run from me to find me; that’s absurd. There are pockets of truth all over the world. Geocaching the hero’s journey.
I can’t be in all places at once. Feeling the sun on my face and hibernating and puzzling. I want it all, but I can’t reach it, I can’t get there. Not all the time.
I haven’t been everywhere, but I know my ideas can travel.
chloé.
Soundtrack
Citations
https://aeon.co/essays/how-i-learned-to-love-new-york-city-stride-by-stride
A Japanese pub