This is the first of two posts wrapping up the Creative October Challenge — a collaboration with my friend, artist and supporter Fuji Hoffmann [vimeo, website] to create something every week (of the month of October) and share the process and results along the way.
Half-the-way through the challenge, i was invited to give a presentation at the I TEDxDrobetaTurnuSeverin in Romania, and Fuji was invited to teach movement and choreography at Wiks Folkhögskola (outside Uppsala, Sweden). With other priorities in mind, we put the experiment on hold until recently, when we decided it would be psychologically beneficial to give it some closure before moving on.
Fuji closed his end of our challenge with a touchingly honest statement about the need to move on without finishing it:
Frankly, if the beautiful colors and shadows he accessed in the process constitute a failure, then i’m not sure what would be a success — a challenge is just a guide!
Thank you so much for your time and engagement, Fuji, and i look forward to walking another path with you some time <3
Fuji and i challenged each other throughout the month of October to experiment with different habits and create something new every week. We made videos describing our process and results and sharing our dialog here on my blog. It starts with Fuji & Mika #0 — Creative October Challenge, where we explain the concept and share our first challenges to each other. To read and watch all posts from the challenge in chronological order, visit Creative October Challenge.
It seems like i was first exposed to (or at least noticed) about half the principles around which i seek to build my existence through my incredible friend Boris. I especially remember the moment i learned the one alluded to in the title.
I don’t remember the details of what we were talking about or the exact words we exchanged, but it went something like this — as one often does, i eventually acknowledged something he had just drawn my attention to by saying that, “unfortunately, i don’t have time for that.”
Ironically, we were out camping to see the Perseids!
Patiently and kindly, as usual, he encouraged me to reflect on what i had just said, and rephrase it as “doing that is not a priority for me.”
I’m not going to say this is easy to implement and i’m now enlightened, even though that powerful lesson took place nearly seven years ago — i still don’t always notice when i use lack of time as an excuse. But when i do, it feels like i was either telling myself an uncomfortable lie or relieving myself of an unnecessary burden — if this is indeed a priority, then what can i drop? — and if it isn’t, then can i just let it go?
Time is all we got — 24 hours a day, approximately. We’re always doing something — in other words, we’re always NOT doing everything else.
If you struggle with time management yourself, whatever the context, i invite you to try this out. Let me know how it goes!
___ Featured photo: waking up to an awe-inspiring fog pool (Borzhava Range, Ukrainian Carpathians, Fall ’18)
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‘ Trelograms’ is a wordplay between ‘telegram’ and ‘trélos’ (Greek for ‘mad’)
People sometimes expect me to have great stories to share. And i do have a few of those and hope to get a few more when i get back on the road next month, although i’ve written before about how unremarkable much of my lifestyle ultimately is — as well as the remarkable that is probably hidden within anyone’s most mundane experiences.
One of my favorite websites on the whole visible Internet is História Sem Graça — a collection of non-stories submitted and curated by readers. For those of you who can’t read Portuguese, this is how it works:
Readers submit stories;
Other readers judge them — if they’re good stories, they DON’T get published on the website!
This was the top one on the feed at the time of this writing:
“o cara que eu gosto estagia comigo, sento atrás dele pra tentar olhar sua bunda”
It freely translates into something like, “the guy i like is an intern with me, and i sit behind him so i can check out his ass.”
Brilliant!
Seriously, isn’t that a significant part of most people’s lives — looking for opportunities to check out the asses of people we find attractive without being noticed?
At least that’s a great deal of what i did while riding my bicycle during the two years i lived in Copenhagen, especially when waiting for the green light — i must have been contemplating the magnificence of my friend’s legs for about seven seconds already when she turned around and we finally recognized and greeted each other — i felt a bit embarrassed, but she said she was flattered!
But i digress.
Had the story on top of the feed been another one, i’d have likely written a whole other unremarkable trelogram — at the core, most of what i’d like to share with you is probably as interesting (or embarrassing) as what you may have experienced last time you took an elevator.
How was it, by the way?
Seriously, if you feel like sharing, i’d like you to tell me the least remarkable event that you can remember in your life this past week — actually, no — least remarkable is too remarkable still — tell me something average!
I don’t know . . .
Damn, the harder i try, the harder it gets!
___ Featured photo: for whatever reason (or perhaps no reason whatsoever), i collect photos of conspicuously parked red vans — this one was seen at 6:01pm on August 12th, 2018 by the Sknylivs’kyi Park in L’viv, Ukraine
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‘ Trelograms’ is a wordplay between ‘telegram’ and ‘trélos’ (Greek for ‘mad’)
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
I saw this inspiring quote at a friend’s place a couple of years ago, and it still comes to mind quite often. I finally looked up who may have said that — i don’t know if this is who she got it from, but the same author has a few other pearls, such as this one:
You’ve got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.
___ Arthur Ashe, American tennis player and social activist
The message today is short: Go for it — start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can!
___ Featured photo: studying sunset colors and exposure from my window (Ukraine, March ’19)
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I originally wrote this piece on March 13th, 2019 for my application to the 2019 World Nomads Travel Writing Scholarship — hence the capital i’s 😉 I’m crossposting it here with some photos, which weren’t included in the original submission.
Back on the road, I broke into tears — again.
“Why does it matter so much to me? I’ve only known them for five minutes! Is it always going to be like this!?”
That’s what I asked myself, copiously crying while pedaling away from Tania, Natasha, and Valia.
This meaningful event took place in the otherwise inconspicuous town of Kiliya, located half-the-way between the better-known Izmail and Vylkove on the Ukrainian segment of the Danube Delta. I was a little over a month into a cycle tour that had started in Serbia, taking me along the Danube through Romania and into Ukraine. The tour would continue for another four months around Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. I was traveling alone. Or was I?
Saying goodbye started getting difficult a few weeks before at a gas station in Romania where I had stopped to borrow the Internet. On my way out, I noticed the owner Martin shed a tear.
“Why are you crying?”
“Because I just started getting to know you, and now you are leaving.”
Florin and Martin (Romania, April ’17)
for the half-an-hour or so i was there, they kept offering me leftovers from their recent Easter celebration a couple of days before — sarmale, drob, cozonac, . . .
That watered my own eyes. I was only able to hold it for long enough to get out of Martin, and his brother Florin’s sight and then surrendered to the first weeping episode of the series leading to the peak one in Kiliya.
I had entered the shop where I met Tania, Natasha, and Valia only to buy bread. But I couldn’t contain their excitement. And it built further up as I explained that I was a traveler originally from Brazil, cycling my way across Eastern Europe, with the loose goal of eventually reaching North Cape, in Norway.
As I was leaving, it hit me hard that I might never see any of the countless people I meet along my way ever again. I felt lonely and insecure. I naively wanted all those seeds to develop into lasting connections.
A little later, I ran into a large group of cycle travelers on holiday. As usual, I stopped to share some bike-touring camaraderie. They were traveling in the opposite direction towards Izmail, starting from Odessa. We traded information about our respective roads ahead, took some photos, exchanged a few hugs, and wished each other a happy ride. They gave me the map they didn’t need anymore, which I later passed down to another traveler when I didn’t need it either.
“Oh, just one more thing — you’ll probably pass by a store called Mahazyn Kashtan. If you need any food, please buy it there, and tell Tania, Natasha, and Valia that Mika from Brazil says hi!”
I don’t know if they did. But that’s what I decided to ask every party of bike travelers I met riding in the opposite direction during those few days between Izmail and Odessa. This scenic ride along the Ukrainian side of the Danube River and the Black Sea turned out to be a popular cycling holiday destination for Ukrainians.
Volodymyr, Leonid, Sergey, Marija, and Darya, from the SvitZaOchi outdoor adventure club (Kiliya, Ukraine, May ’17)
brothers Yuriy and Yevgeny (Vylkove, Ukraine, May ’17)
A few days later, I was refilling my water bottles at a roadside restaurant in the village of Zatoka when I heard an excited call, “Brazilia!” When I looked back, another two-wheeled traveler approached me, pointing to my bicycle, and repeating, “Brazilia!”
That’s what “Brazil” sounds like in Slavic languages. But how could he have known?
His name was Zhenya, and it turns out he had been to Mahazyn Kashtan a day after me. The owner showed him photos of my cycle-touring rig, which he recognized by the distinct yellow and red panniers.
Whether or not the other riders were heeding my request to visit the ladies in Kiliya, I felt like our brief encounter had not been insignificant to them either.
When Zhenya caught up with me, we were 60km away from Odessa. We agreed to ride those together. We parted ways shortly after our arrival — I wanted a hot shower at my host’s in the city, and he wanted one last cold dip in the Black Sea before catching a train back home.
the moment Zhenya spotted me in Zatoka (Ukraine, May ’17)
the moment we parted ways upon our arrival in Odessa
The overarching journey is ultimately mine. But it can still be shared with others whenever and for however long it intersects with theirs. I travel solo, not alone. And I’ll cry if I have to.
___ Featured photo: Tania, Natasha, and Valia (May ’17)
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