& Then, I Became.

here Although the tiniest, this post is the one most special to me from my trip with my wonderful friend Chaya (yes, she really does deserve all these complimentary adjectives I’ve been throwing at her in these posts). When we started plotting the Great American Road Trip it was a series of destinations: San Diego, Sedona, Petrified Forest, Carlsbad, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, and back to Miami. This is a logical thing to organize when embarking on a cross-country trip, especially one with a deadline. How long it should take us to get from place to place, and how long we would have to spend once we got there before getting on our way to the next one. That all changed once we actually started driving. Once in motion and on a “road trip” every inch of our route became “there”, because we were on a road trip. The whole journey is the destination. Every song. Every gas station. Every mile. The views flying told us “We’re there!” over and over and...

victory “You will always remember where you were when you heard the Twin Towers had fallen.” “You will always remember where you were when you heard Kennedy was shot.” You will always remember where you were when you heard of the select few stand out global tragedies.  But can you think of one beautiful, brilliant moment of pure victory that you shared with thousands of brothers and sisters worldwide? I can. I had been sitting in a car for almost 7 hours en route from San Diego to Sedona. The first day of our road trip. The last day of Chanukah, the eight candles lit the night before on a city street corner. Persumei Neissa. We had driven through countless beautiful landscapes just within the first few hours, but nothing to compare to the red rock of Sedona. We were listening to a podcast that had to be paused to listen to a Whatsapp voice note from my brother. Over the car loudspeaker played, “...my mother is going to pick him up soon…” Chaya: Is he talkin...

the stillness When I told people I was driving across the country with my friend (Chaya, greatest travel partner of all time. G-d bless this girl’s soul.) they asked a lot about how much driving that is, how many miles we would be moving, how many hours we would each have to drive. No one asked about the blissful moments of perfect stillness. I couldn’t have predicted the utter now-ness, the pure halt, even if they had. Yes, we did travel many miles, but we were fully experiencing where we were - and who we were in those moments. We were just somewhere in the middle of nowhere drinking it all in. We listened to SO MUCH music, played podcasts (The Hilarious World of Depression and Serial - both highly recommended), filmed the passing scenery, and talked and talked and talked. Each stop left us with something (usually an iron on patch :D, but all jokes aside I really did feel myself becoming more person with every new city, like rings were being added to my core the way they do to...