Wayfinding: I lay in silence on a hot bed still dripping sweat. I am deep in the Hawaiian jungle, only the sounds of birds, insects, and a whooshing fan remind me that I am not inside some cave inside my own head. I am in the world, wishing I were somewhere else, trying my best to remind myself that there is so much in exactly how things are. I am on a journey forwards, not backwards, despite my predilection for recollection that keeps the past around–another lifelong habit I am trying to break.

I break my silence to tell you that I am wondering about direction. I have listened to many people speak about the concept of wayfinding; listening to the rhythm of the wind, mapping the stars, committing to memory each and every step taken on a specific journey; relativizing the present orientation to the point from which you started. I started yesterday–or two days ago maybe. It is hard to know right now because of the time change.

It was roughly a day and a half ago that I woke up in your bed. Your magnanimous light beaming beside me, ready to take care; how beautiful but also unfortunate as it reminds me that I am in need of being taken care of. But I am working on refraining from framing my perspective so negatively so I will try to see it a different way–like the fact that we all need to be taken care of despite our own competencies. This truth revealing itself in soft supple moments throughout most days that never seem to stop.

Your skin was my favourite to touch. I sit here, so far away from you now, counting each and every step of my parting. I did much to keep it from happening, but none of it prevailed as the universe took a big sigh–its breath with a force that picked me up and catapulted me across the North Pacific–half way between Australia and North America. Every drip of sweat that falls from my body on this hot tropical island contains a memory from our short time together, as that time permeated me so deep it left a trace of you inside each cell that is pulled close by my own gravity. But even though some of these cells may be discarded, traded for new ones that have never known your face, there is more to me and my memory that persists, including the feeling of affection translated into a pattern, encoded in my nervous system. I carry your touch; the feeling of your hand closed around mine. 

*

In moving forward, I reconcile with the fact that the world, or the forces to be, demand my presence elsewhere. I wanted to stay, but there is more than staying wrapped up in the sheets of your bed. Agency may just be bringing the needle to the surface of the moon and popping it like a balloon.  

I came to Hawaii to write, but the same thing is happening–which always happens and fucks things up. I am fixated on tragedy. Just earlier, I began to write:

2.38pm: the geckos have come for their little morsels of food this morning–leeching their tongues out to press against the stone countertop in search of life. I feel exactly like them; slinking about the dirt and ore chessboard on the hunt for a checkmate. No such luck–not yet anyways. The only problem is I have never found what I am looking for so I am not sure I will know it when I see it. 

And so maybe I should ask the question: anxiety, why are you here? Perhaps, everything is fine–even my own dramatic grief, and there is nothing to figure out. I will make my way back to you, and every friend that I love and cherish, and the streets that I dream about every time I leave; the little corners that flash their sly smile in homage to being exactly where one should be. With arms that stretch out like tentacles, and the grip of a cobra, I do not want to let go. But I must.

*

Wayfinding: if I retrace the steps enough times maybe I will open my eyes and find myself at some other point in the journey. Maybe I will wake up back in your bed.