a quiet musing on elsewhere
Tea. Again. I’ve already had one, maybe two. I’m not counting. I just know I want more. Some kind of habit, or maybe a ritual. Either way, the cup keeps refilling. It’s not about caffeine. It’s about motion. About doing something that feels like pause, but is really escape.
I’ve always wanted to be elsewhere. Not in a dramatic, fleeing kind of way. Just not here. Not fixed. Not confined. From early on, I sensed I wasn’t quite made for the place I came from. Maybe it was the pull of other places. The promise of motion, of new textures, of difference. But more honestly, it may have been the push from where I was. A quiet discomfort. A sense of being surrounded by rules I hadn’t agreed to. By expectations that fit someone else better. Nothing was overtly wrong, but something was persistently off. Like walking around in clothes that never sat quite right. I didn’t yet know what I was searching for, but I knew I had to leave to even begin looking.
As a kid, I felt homesick at home. Norway offered stillness, space, and the comfort of knowing where you are in the landscape. I’ve always valued that. I still do. The quiet. The silences. But even those silences couldn’t explain the feeling that I didn’t quite belong. That there were other textures of life waiting to be lived. Less conforming, messier, more immediate.
And so life took me elsewhere.
Africa came first which is impossible not to fall in love with. The colors, the pace, the people, the contradictions, the openness. Then Eastern Europe. Different, more measured, layered, and marked by history that lingers in people’s values. Later, Latin America. A region where emotion is visible. Where warmth is not hidden. Where presence is spoken, not just felt. Always welcoming.
But this isn’t a story of drifting.
Somewhere in all that movement, I found something anchoring. A family. One that travels with me becausse that is our life and nature. For us, movement is not detachment. It’s connection. Exploration is not escape, but how we grow. We share a life that allows us to understand each other across shifting environments. That kind of safety makes the world feel navigable. Even when the rest of it doesn’t quite understand.
Because outside our little unit, returning is often harder than leaving.
People ask, “So, how was it?”
I try to answer. Politely. Briefly. But most answers aren’t welcome unless they fit into something familiar. The stories shrink. The meaning stays unspoken. I remember the blank eyes. Not unfriendly, just not tuned to the same frequency. So I stop explaining and the memoreis becomes decoration with travel with.
However, you can’t always bring home what you’ve seen. Some things are meant to be lived, not translated. And when you’ve shifted inside but the place you return to hasn’t, you learn the quiet art of holding things alone.
Still, I return to what grounds me: tea. A small ritual that bridges continents or perhaps just my mind. A moment to be still before moving again.
Another cup.
Another memory that doesn’t need to be told.
Another day lived between places.
Not lost.
Just itinerant.