Yet Untitled 154 - Time Travel after meeting a (very dear) Digital Nomad
Back on the road, this time alone, and what that did to me
Dearest Yet Untitler
Hello from up in the clouds. I’m flying back from a work trip and I’m thinking of you, of us and this newsletter that binds us together.
Because I took my second hiatus in three years recently, I seem to have forgotten the muscle memory involved in stalking the ideas that eventually become instalments of YU. I can now say with considerable certainty that the process of writing week upon week leads to a momentum - a sharpening of instincts - that, when active, move on well oiled wheels towards transforming flashes of insight into the sort of narrative that populates these pages. These instincts very quickly shortlist photos, present headers and subheaders and quickly chart a course through the idea, crystallising everything in their wake.
Spending time away, I observe, dull these instincts a little. They fire up later than usual, having moved to down to the deck from their usual place in the crows nest. Now, I can hear them grumbling as they climb up the mast of this here ship that is Yet Untitled, back to the crow’s nest.
So, avast avast ye Yet Untitlers, yet pursuers of this pirate vessel that’s been sailing the seas for three years! Let’s sail!
This week, I met a nephew of mine who’s living the life of a digital nomad in a foreign country. He’s 25, incredibly smart and very self aware. Having held him as a baby, I can’t help choking up with pride when I hear him asking questions that I wish I had asked with as much clarity when I was his age. He’s asking important questions while having the world at his feet, with every possibility open before him. What’s amazing is that he’s seen the sharp edge of failure early in his life, so he’s not floating in la-la land feeling as if life owes it to him to transport his ass to the pinnacle of his dreams on gossamer wings.
The boy’s doing good.
He took me around me his new city. We took in a few bars, ate some stupendously delicious street side dessert, listened to some jazz and discussed some of life’s conundrums and mysteries.
He may not know this till he reads it here, but the navigation of his haunts wasn’t the only journey he took me on. Meeting him now made me do a little time travel, back to myself - perhaps not when I was exactly the same age as him, but perhaps at a similar stage - charting my way ahead independently, alone and on my own terms, responsible only for myself and nobody else.
This is a good time to listen to Annie Lennox singing ‘Little Bird’. Lyrics here.
I enjoyed that time. I savoured the same questions he’s savouring now, with seemingly endless time to address them. Stretchable coffees in cafés were usually for this purpose alone. Sometimes, friends would join in what was mostly a solitary voyage, but they would and step out.
I remember the abundance of one particular scenario back then - to be able to pick and choose from so many things that were possible to do. Most often, this would result in the failure to make a choice at all. Mostly, I remember that this happened by virtue of not having any point of reference that would tell me what’s the right things to do.
I remember once, on a weekend that seemed to stretch on and on, I ended up shaving the hair off my forearms! For some reason, it seemed like the desirable thing to do!
I also remember loneliness, and finding myself peeking into lives that seemed to have more of an anchor than I did at that point, all with great fascination. I was looking at people I knew who were more ‘settled’ - coming back home to spaces they shared with girlfriends or new wives/husbands. I knew that these lives that I was looking at, with no small amount of wistfulness, came with their own set of constraints. But from where I stood, these constraints seemed sweet, worthy and forbidding all at once.
I remember the feeling of having agency and not knowing what to do with it. I remember the feeling that because I could change everything about my life at any time if I so chose - eg. go live in another city, another country - everything around me felt somehow transient and temporary, hence a little ethereal and ghost-like.
I also remember the thrill of when something significant would galvanise my then-life with electricity. A love affair. A career win. It was as if a bright light would shine and reveal the shape of everything all at once in stark relief. There would be clarity, there would be direction. But then, especially in the inevitable solitude, the shadows would creep back in.
All this I remember. And I’ve been especially remembering this in the last few days of a solo work trip where it almost felt, after a long time, that I am, at least as I tourist, visiting a city where I once resided for a long time, after a long time.
I’m remembering this now when I’m completely on the other side, with my life firmly anchored in the sea of my family. Now, my thinking, my choices, are by necessity not only for myself but also for them. They have to be. I have chosen for them to be.
Eventually, with my eyes fully open, I chose to step out that solitary sojourn and choose a different sort of life, one that rooted me more firmly in one place. Only because I - Vasant, the now writer of Yet Untitled - was done with they previous life and was ready for another.
While I may have left the life behind, it’s thrilling to see someone start down that road. I feel a thrill for them. I also feel protective for the dangers they will encounter. But rather than voice my fears to them, I utter a little prayer, a little like Eric Clapton does in this song (lyrics here).
A wise friend once said when talking about her son
“He must have the benefit of his own mistakes. Why would I deny him that?”
And, just to clarify, that time wasn’t only a time of wrong turns - there were so many amazing things that happened. So memorable are the kind words from people who looked at me knowingly, perhaps in a way similar to how I looked at my nephew these past days, and shared a thing or two with me about their own similar experiences. Many of their kind words stayed with me, like when I was stuck in a bit of a mire and a close friends mother told me:
“The field must also lie fallow for it to again be fertile.”
One day, my daughters will have their own version of this experience - flying solo and finding their way without the constant presence of mum and dad. The thought thrills me. As the time comes closer, I’m sure it’ll scare me. I can even see myself moving in to protect them, but I also see me holding myself back, because I know what they’re about to go through will become one of the most precious experiences of their lives.
Onward.
Thanks for listening. Let’s keep sailing together.
Lots of love
V
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