Unpacking our bags, doing the laundry, returning to daily life at home. Sketches and drawings appear from bags and pockets, we’re sorting our pictures and stories, and the strands of inspiration lie before me.
How easy it would be to just let go of the trip, continue where we left off before, and never think about the seeds we found in the mountains and along the sea. But something calls me – there’s something to create.
Returning
While sorting, I realized there’s something funny about the word ‘returning’: it says ‘to turn again’. To turn is to move, to circle, to flip. So as we return, we in fact come back to this state of moving. There’s nothing static or final about returning. There is, however, a clear sense of ‘turning’ the page you used to be on. The word seems to imply there is no turning back, only turning again.
So yes, we have returned from our trip and as the laundry is tumbling, we find our place in the rhythm of daily life as we move along with this planet that turns around the Sun. There are circles everywhere reminding us of constant change. And as I trace with my fingers the sketches of tectonic movement made visible by the turning of the Earth’s crust, the paths created by the returning movements of animals and people, there’s something there.
So I collected the drawings, returned to the adventures, sights, and the life we enjoyed, and assembled them into a single experience of getting out of yourself. A zine, a small travel treasure of impressions to carry along. The last sentence became: “We can always return” – turn the page again, and you’re back at the beginning, looking with different eyes.
This zine is available including shipping within NL via my webshop for € 6.
