Notebooks

The black Moleskine notebooks travel everywhere I do. They matter more than my passport or wads of Tanzanian shillings or blister packs of Malarone. They hold the stories of the previous 13 months of my life, the journeys from China to Djibouti to the United Arab Emirates and a hundred points in between.

The edges are worn. Airline ticket stubs are crammed between pages. There are hastily-scribbled e-mail addresses. Quotes from Ernest Hemingway and David Livingstone and T.E. Lawrence. Lyrics from The Who. The business card for Said Ramadhani, the Dar es Salaam cabbie who doesn't believe in speed limits, road signs, traffic signals or anything other than driving as if he's being chased by the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Movement has been the constant of the last year: 20 countries, 28 planes, 57 trains, 66 taxis, 14 boats, 22 cars, 53 daladalas, 35 buses, eight gondolas, one bicycle and one scooter. I slept in 48 places. Got 19 mosquito bites. Drank 29 different beers. Thought I had malaria a half-dozen times. Lost count of near-death experiences. Was jumped twice. Swam into a school of jellyfish. Witnessed a jailbreak. Mistook an elephant for a boulder. Climbed Africa's tallest mountain. Held starving children. And a thousand other moments.

Beyond the adventure, I see a person being brought back to life page by page, country by country, month by month. I'm not the same man as the burned-out sportswriter who flew back to Seattle last February, having walked away from a dream job to plunge into the unknown of a year in the world. Back then, I was exhausted, bored and captive to my career and bank account. I dreamed, but didn't do and, because of that, a little bit of me died each day.

Today, I thumb through the pages searching for an answer to the question I can't escape: What next?

I'm addicted to the road. To going places others won't. To telling stories that shine light into dark corners of the world. To writing about things that matter. To exploring. To being challenged. To doing hard things.

I can't return to ordinary.

But there needs to be purpose and, of course, making a dollar or two at some point. Ideas abound. Write a book about the last year, of living the fantasy of walking away from all that's familiar so many harbor. Keep traveling and freelance stories abroad. I thought these questions of career and purpose would have been answered months ago. They haven't. That's part of the adventure. Some days it's easier to believe that than others. And sometimes, as I'm learning, patience is tougher than action.

Two things are clear: Keep writing and keep traveling. What does that look like? No idea.

I wanna have the same last dream again
The one where I wake up and I'm alive
Just as the four walls close me within
My eyes are opened up with pure sunlight
- "The Adventure," Angels and Airwaves