South Island,
New Zealand
Having always longed to get lost, to be somewhere I’d never seen with no idea
where I was, I used to just drive. I’d get in my car wito agenda and nowhere
to be and just drive for hours by myself, taking any turn on a whim, down any
road, desperately trying to find myself on a road I’d never been, in a place I’d
never seen, with no idea where I was in relation to anything or anywhere else.
Just me, my music, and the road.
I never could quite get myself as lost as I wanted to be.
I don’t know why I always had this desire to run. Not necessarily away from
things or people. Just the thrill of running so far and so fast until that moment
you feel you’re about to take flight. Any minute now if you just keep going.
I’ve had that my whole life. And if I couldn’t see a way to get on a plane and
travel the world myself and truly be lost, the courage or a conceivable route
to get me there, then I was going to find that little thrill in my little life, in my
little state, any way that I could.
Today, I was lost somewhere far across the world from those hometown streets
I knew so well. I had just driven the entire west coast of New Zealand’s South
Island with no clue as to my destination, only that I would know once I had
reached it. It was thrilling and I smiled to myself, thinking of that girl who had
so desperately wanted to find herself in a world she didn’t know compared
to the girl I was on this day, 6 months after leaving home and a million miles
away, I had been lost for the entirety of it.
W R I T I N G
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P H O T O S
:
K
T H O M A S
I found my paradise that night on a tiny beach in Kaiteriteri. I hadn’t tried
to find the tiny town but as soon as I rounded the corner and came face to
face with that tiny abandoned beach, I knew I had arrived in the exact place
I wanted to be. Awe struck and in love at first sight with the brush strokes of
this sky, I sat in the sand alone, mesmerized, watching that night dance it’s last
number, wondering if it could possibly be all for me.
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