I'll never not be boring.

I'm trying to figure out how I want my writing to evolve as I embark on this sabbatical. (Also trying to figure out what to call this year away. Leave of absence? LOA? Leave? Release and return? Year aboard? Travel year? Escape? Eat-pray-love OH god no). I've been reading travel writers, slipping their prose around me to see what I like and dislike. Some of the masters of the craft are so out of my league, I wouldn't presume to even "Chat j'ai pété" them. It would be like trying to copy a Titian and pretend like I understood anything about light and darkness. What's colour?

No, no, I know I am outclassed by the likes of Naipaul, Murphy, and Theroux.

But I love thinking about how they saw the poetry around them. What did they observe in the moment? How much did they embellish later; are they like artist, sketching outlines en place, and filling in gaps at home in a quiet studio?

Take Jan Morris, for example. I'm currently reading Locations, a collection of articles previously written for magazines through the 80s and 90s. (Our very own Ottawa gets a fairly kind review in 1987 - nothing much has changed). Wading through the jingoistic imperialism was a slog, but she has a such distinctive way of describing people. "The movements seemed to me kind of airy, as though tending towards weightlessness." She states, enchanted and also sickened in Oaxaca. "He clenched his modest muscles, he moved his head this way and that like a woman trying on a wedding hat." She stares, in suspicious Paris. She likens Vermont residents to Russians, without using the word "Russian" until the end of the paragraph. Her character sketches are always sharp, but not always unkind.

Jan Morris' view on Empire, culture, and indigenous people is problematic, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend her writing. Interestingly, she's probably one of the first trans women living an unapologetic life, transitioning in her late 30s (in the 1960s!) and staying married to her wife for (essentially) the rest of her life (I want Elizabeth's biography). I picked up a few of her books in a used bookstore months ago, not really knowing what to expect. What I've gotten is a complex woman with a sharp eye for detail, blindness about her own sense of superiority, and a riotous sense of irony. I think she would attribute that last part to her Welsh heritage.

I've also received a series of lessons in the importance of looking around your surroundings and actually watching the world around you. Getting my head out of my phone or book, and see what the world is doing. I think that will be the most important lesson from Jan - ok, maybe also, the reminder that you can like a place and still criticize it. You can also dislike a place and find some grace for it. Nothing is all good or all bad. It's an important lesson in our age.

Today, for example, I'm at the cafe down the street. I have 2 hours before an appointment, so I'm taking my time to write, drink a latte, and devour a donut. I can assume that one of the FIFA World Cup games is playing soon. Four young men in futball jerseys patronize one of the cafe tables, brimming with excitement. Guatemala, Japan, and ?Curaçao were represented, I couldn't see the name on last proudly emblazoned shirt. Snippets of conversations circled players I do not know and plays I have not seen. This is a vibrant time for soccer in Canada. The baristas are excited for the game, too; asking follow up questions and laughing at quips. I understand very little and care less.

Next to me, a generically beautiful, young, blond, thin woman has been speaking loudly about an instagram drama. Her companions, equally young, were quietly reading books after sharing a sweet loving kiss across the table before she arrived. She dominates the conversation, punctuating her story with gesticulations and exclamations of surprise. I hope she does well in this world, but is deeply boring the way all 20 year-olds are deeply boring.

Not that I have much to say about a boring life. I wake up, work, come home, read, scroll a bit too much on substack or instagram, and go to bed. Sometimes I cook a wonderful dinner, but lately I don't. Once a week I have dinner at my parents'. My anecdotes circle injustices in the world, personal grievances, and books I've read. Sometimes something reminds me of my 20s, but I've forgotten so much from that time...and I don't even have drugs to blame for the memory loss. Middle age comes for us all.

My inner life is rich and varied, my dreams at night are colourful and often include aspects of space travel. No one will know the details of these things. Sometimes, in my navel gazing, I think of the billions of other people's complex inner lives and imagine how vibrant our world actually is (except for Andreessen's, I imagine the inside of his mind is like watching off-white paint dry).

I would like for my external life to be almost as vibrant as my internal. The purpose of my Abroadessey (Oh, yeah, no) is looking more and more like a year where I find some hobbies I like, that I can stick with, and improve enough in my own time and on my own terms. Tennis seems to be a contender, and guitar. I might look for a choir to join, if that's something people do. I'm open to other things. Cooking again, maybe. I'll need to make sure I have kitchens to use. Should I branch out to extreme sports? HAH. Finding what I want to do, that can translate back into my life here, has been harder than I thought. It's complicated when you no longer feel like you have to follow the a prescribed path.

But while away - always reading. Reading reading reading reading reading. I'll never stop. I'll guess never not be boring.