Listening to a neighborhood wake up has always been one of my very favorite parts of traveling in other countries. I’m sure if it weren’t for the need for suburbs, I could probably hear it more where I am currently living in Texas.

I love hearing conversations going on six stories below between two men on the street. Probably having a coffee and some big chunk of carbs. They can do that because they are going to spend their day walking most places they need or want to go.

Here come the cars. For the first 45 minutes, I heard the occasional motorcycle and many of the day’s delivery trucks, big boxes full of fresh fixings for the cafés and restaurants nearby.

Mike and A and I are in Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia. Sort of in the Northern middle of the country. The city sits in a bowl, surrounded by mountains, and I swear I have heard birds make sounds here that I have never heard before in my life.

The squealing brakes, the honking horns, the powered things. The sounds of the vehicles multiplying, one following another.

Writing in 2024 feels very different than writing in 2001. My stream of consciousness back then flowed freely — before Facebook and Instagram and all of the other creativity-smashers. It never occurred to me when I started a blog 23 years ago that anyone else would read it. And it certainly did not occur to me that they would ever have or share an opinion about it. Now, I find myself wondering if what I am typing is going to be compared to something or someone, or horror of horrors, to myself. 23-years-ago-me. And it isn’t even happening willfully. It has just become a part of the DNA. To fret. To feel concern for how my words are going to affect others — even though I have rarely ever been someone who sets out to offend or to provoke in anything resembling a negative way.

I joke all the time lately about how, as I approach my 57th birthday, it has become less and less essential to me to make sure that everyone else is okay. That everything I think, do and or say must go through some sort of “what-if-they-don’t-like-me?-” or “what-if-they-don’t-agree-with-me-?” filter. That is not to say that I have become reckless with my words or that I have been drained of empathy and compassion. Or that I could care less if I offend someone. Au contraire. What it means is that I am taking much better care of myself by setting and holding firm some boundaries. I have found myself in a few rather uncomfortable moments in the recent past where I realized after a moment that I have been allergic to discomfort for the great majority of my life. I do not like to marinate in it. And customarily, when I have felt it, I have been compelled almost immediately to set about making it dissipate, whether I caused it or not. In fact, I think it would be accurate to say that my allergy to discomfort has been so severe that I have usually avoided it . . . by any means necessary. Generally to my own detriment. Maybe that is part of The Curse. Maybe if Eve would have pushed past the urge to pick the dang Bad Apple, AND if Adam would have stepped out of his passivity to remind her that was the ONLY fruit in the entire Garden that they had been instructed not to eat, this issue would never have existed.

Wait. Was that moment the Birth of Discomfort and its arresting power to lead people to make decisions that are not only detrimental to their own well-being but also to that of others?

Did I just have an epiphany? I think I did.

This is why I should travel. And write. Whether I’m traveling or not.

I saw a quote one time that said something like, “I don’t know how I feel about something until I write it down.” It’s so true. For me. And I somehow abandoned the regular practice. Or semi-regular. Did it begin to die when I stopped being able to leave the country? Or did it begin to die when other parts of my life began to flourish? Oh no. Did I do the thing where if I didn’t have some kind of concern to mull over or some kind of observation to make about something I was sensing, I just didn’t write about the regular? There is so much beauty in the regular. I’m censoring myself right now because I don’t want to offend anyone. And there isn’t even anyone to offend. What a weirdo I am sometimes.

The stream of consciousness just got dammed up. It’s imaginary, of course, but dams be damming.

Oh, well, at least there are some words that came out of me. And at least I’m awake before the sun came up.

Good morning, Medellín!