Worm Bins, Whiskey, and the Weight of Home
On seeds, worm bins, homesickness, and the quiet dream of a cottage filled with stories.
Pippin and I enjoying the day at Golden Gate Park (2024)
Sometimes I wonder if traveling will bring me further from mi amor…
I bought seeds the other day.
Ok, I may have gone a bit feral in the seed aisle. Mucho mucho seeds. Tomate, acelga, romero, camomila… pimiento picante—gifted by the jardinero.
I also bought materials to build a worm bin for composting and a tub to grow oyster mushrooms to study botany and mycology because I’ve always found the sciences interesting.
I’ve been holding off on buying these things not knowing how long I’d be in Spain. It was only last month I allowed myself to buy new bed sheets and shorts. What if I had to pack up again? What if the northern winds blew me away again?
I’ve been away from San Francisco for a long time now. Leaving in November of 2023, coming back only for a short while, then away for a long while, coming back and then leaving again for a long time.
Sometimes I wonder if I have left the most important and beautiful thing to me—mi familia. I miss them so much.
I miss San Francisco. I miss Carl the Fog. I miss our beautiful Golden Gate Park. I miss the food. I miss the people. I miss the “fuck you—this is me” energy. I even miss hop scotching around poop… but only just a little. It’s the kind of disgusting charm of your lover when they let one rip and waft it your way or do that thing you hate for the hundredth time.
Sometimes you don’t know whether you love or hate them in that moment but when things quiet—your heart swells.
Yet, here in Estepona, Spain, I am thriving. I enjoy swimming and yoga overlooking the beach. I am painting and writing. I am creating and now growing. I can allow myself to flop on a bed. I can breathe.
The first dream I had of myself when I was younger, I kept to myself. It was me, with a trimmed beard and stash, sitting in a well used, comfortable leather chair smoking a cigar and drinking whiskey chatting with my friends in a library top to bottom filled with books, maps, eccentricities from my travels.
But I hid that dream for a long, long time because I thought it was fundamentally impossible. I won’t go into that right now.
When I was younger, the room was vast—cathedral ceilings, ladders to reach the top shelves, a whiskey and scotch bar in the corner. Of course smoking cigars would damage the books—pero debes comprender la belleza de la imagen!
Now, it’s even an intimate cottage with a fireplace and nick-knacks with hand crocheted blankets and pillows. Mi amor curled up in a good book. My pup beside me as I sip on a glass of scotch.
The interior and size of the library shifts a bit here and there but the dream has remained the same.
As much as I love cooking, engineering, animation, art, storytelling, working with my hands… that dream is the end-all, be-all dream. I was never going to be the best engineer and I’m probably never going to be a “successful” artist— whatever that means. Famous? Monetized? Immortalized?
But I can keep myself surrounded by stories, maps, great adventures… and in that act, I carry their stories. I carry their love. I carry the beat of their drums.
And I believe that’s what traveling means to me.
It’s not just going. It’s bringing, sharing, exchanging, laughing, crying, and carrying. It’s a heavy pack and sometimes our knees give out and it’s really difficult to stand back up weak from exhaustion.
But to travel is to carry love.
And sometimes I wonder if traveling will bring me further from mi amor—whomever that may be.
If they’re curled up in a good book, I’m certain I can meet them along the way.
Y así viajamos… no sólo con los pies, sino con el corazón.
I hear you Pippin—the struggle is real…