And it opened up my eyes.

I visited a friend in Paris in July 2013, a great adventure that followed many months of longing, wanderlust, and a large amount of some semi-defined need for something more. I had a great time, of course, but I came home and experienced something I didn’t expect: a bone-deep despondence that crept in where my thrill to exploring had been for the previous week and a half.

Apparently this is normal, but I’d never experienced it, and so I was totally unprepared. In the end, I spent as long grieving the trip as I had spent traveling.

When it lifted, I had a new resolve: to remind myself, often, why I live where I do. To aggressively explore it the way I had explored Paris, the kind of living that usually falls by the wayside in the face of day-to-day life.

In my period of readjustment, my methadone was red wine, a quest for a decent baguette, and travel blogs. And writing here, when I can.

I live in Oakland now, and coming to the Bay Area with the idea that it was my obligation to explore as much as I could has served me well.

So: hey, here we are.