I can't say that I've always had it. I can't say that it's something vital of my being - this restlessness - but I have had several experiences of it, and some quite severe that disable me of being in the moment and enjoying the day for what it is. I'm sure someone has said this before, but a day waiting is a day wasted, isn't it?
Sometimes to pass the time, while waiting, I find myself thinking back on previous years, previous adventures and previous moments of waiting. I can vividly go back to the last week I spent in Georgia, where it was a weird mixture of trying to cram as many experiences as possible through that week, but also counting down the days to go back home. I remember, back then, I was very much ready to go back home.
Thinking back on that year in Georgia usually wake really positive and warm memories and feelings in me. I will always talk about how grateful I am about having that year, about how unique the whole experience was and about how much I love that country. And I do. Georgia will always have a very dear and special space burrowed in my being, in what makes me me. It gave so much that I had never expected to get in my lifetime... it gave me more than what I thought I wanted. Never had I known myself to be as daring and as fearless as when I lived in Georgia; never had I known myself to be as stupid and naive and as desperate for the adventure I thought I wanted.
The rawness of the place. An essence that can only gather with years of life in the wildest of places. Where modernity can't overtake history and tradition. Where the roads aren't paved and it doesn't seem to bother anyone. Where there is always room for one more - in a marshutka or at a supra. A place surrounded by endless landscape of mountains; a place where people haven't, and people don't try to control the land in order to survive, but they are able to live in the harmony among the mountains, among the valleys, the forests and the raw natural beauty of Earth.
It's a place where your home might be missing a toilet, or a shower, but it will never be missing a table - a table overflowing with freshly made food served for every and any family and stranger alike. Where you are always welcomed, and where the people give everything they have, even what they don't have, in order to make you feel part of their household, in order to have you as a guest.
Still, it's a place that taught me to be careful. For as welcoming and warm as the people are, you have to remember that every paradise has a secret passage for reality to creep in. This is a place where a bus driver will drive to your house to return some lose change that fell out of your pocket earlier; this is also the place where a taxi driver could get forceful on you. This is a place where I have never seen the stars shine so bright and so plain on a nightly basis; this is also the place where I fell knee deep on a Turkish toilet because it was hidden in the middle of a field, no shelter.
This is a place that gave me a new, and very real definition for 'wine for every occasion'. It gave me wine in plastic jugs, wine in bottles, wine at supras, on the street and on school grounds; wine at beach bonfires and under the stars at ancient fortresses; wine in buses, wine from strangers; a different wine made at each different home, and Georgia, you gave me all.
You gave me a crash course on humility and acceptance; a crash course on getting to know myself, on life and on experience.
A dear friend to me wrote "Remember that there is and always will be beauty, magic and love to experience!" - And it has become a new mantra for myself. For now, three years since my Georgian experience, ti is easy to see it for all the craziness and the magic of it - I see nothing and I will take nothing more than the beauty, than the magic and than the love that I experienced there.
Thank you, Georgia.
Can't wait to see you again.
Can't wait to see you again.
