Roam, if you want to.

Fly the great big sky
See the great big sea
Kick through continents
Busting boundaries…

The B-52s, Roam

I’ve got to start the sabbatical blog series with a favorite song from my favorite Athens, GA band (I know…it’s not R.E.M), because in the midst of my pre-trip jitters (or, you know, panic attacks) this song came on my playlist and a giant smile spread across my face. “Ah yes, Alicia, this is what it’s all about….”

After a 23-hour journey that included a three-hour stint on the Newark Airport runway and a quick refuel in Lome, Togo, so begins my three-month sabbatical. Already, I’ve found people incredibly friendly. I sat next to a hilarious couple who live in Vegas now, but originally hail from Ethiopia. She is Eritrean and he is from the Southern region of Ethiopia — they were eager to give me different tips about things to see and help me take a few stabs at Amharic, the official language in Ethiopia.

At Newark airport, I met a woman named Sarah who works as a nurse in Framingham, MA, but is visiting her grandmother and sister in Addis. Over dinner, she told me about her teenage years fleeing the government during the Ethiopian Civil War and crossing into the Sudan free zone from Gondar — no small trek. After a harrowing time as a refugee, she was ultimately sponsored by her uncle in Dallas to live in America. She is warm, motherly (she gushed about her two children in college, insisted on buying me my dinner and wants to show me a few places in Addis) and hard-working.

Her story made me reflect on the state of discourse about refugees and immigrants in America right now. It’s not only heartbreaking and angering in light of the often-mean and over-simplified things that people will say about immigrants, but it also makes me eschew the idea of a so-called merit-based system. I have to wonder if Sarah, with her now-perfect and accent-free American diction, children moving through college and steady job as a caretaker for others, would have made the cut as a refugee if we ever adopt some of the ideas being thrown around by government officials these days. She was just 18 when she had to flee, so none of these qualities or circumstances about her life today could have been known. Anyways, I digress. But I’ll just say that the quality of Ethiopian restaurants in Boston alone should make us welcome the great gifts of refugees and immigrants.

The hilarious and somewhat unsettling flight map on my Ethiopian Airlines flight to Lome, Togo.

Greeting my inner-worrier

I begin my journey on the sunny, dusty and quasi-chaotic streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Addis, for those keeping score, grabs the number 4 spot on the list of highest altitude capitols in the world. Clocking in at 2,355 meters (or 7726 feet) above sea level, Addis leaves you just a bit more winded and weaker than normal. Having been to La Paz, Bolivia, the reigning champion for oh-my-god-why elevation, I would say that this is a manageable adjustment, although it leaves me a little nervous for my 5-day trek in the Simien Mountains coming up at the end of the week.

Today is mostly about calibrating to the altitude, time change and the idea of being in Africa. My plan is to be in Ethiopia for three weeks, with a homebase at my dear friends Mukhtar Amin and Sarah Hurlburt’s house in Addis. Mukhtar is a fellow Jumbo, and we met while working at the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts. After spending many years in the Boston area, Amin and Sarah moved to Addis to raise their kids and experience life in Amin’s home country.

Being with them is a great comfort at the start of my journey. When faced with uncertainty, my tendency is to become a worry wart and concoct all sorts of disaster scenarios in my head. I wish this wasn’t so, but this is my process. Several months ago, the idea of bouncing around the globe with three months to myself and no requirement to define myself through working at Farm Aid or as a yoga teacher was absolutely exhilarating. But as the departure date crept closer and closer, my inner worrier became louder and louder. I’ll leave out the specific iterations of the movie that plays in my head, which can be truly ridiculous and horrific, but it usually falls along the lines of “Who am I if I’m not Farm Aid’s advocacy director?” and “What if something terrible happens while I’m abroad?”

Those in my closest circle of friends and loved ones have seen the Alicia-worry-demon up close and personal. It’s not pretty. But the truth is my inner-worrier is an old friend who’s just trying to keep me safe. She came by her fear and worry honestly, having seen and survived real trauma, and she often just feels the need to work overtime when I meet substantially uncharted waters. She’s a warrior in her own right.

Since this is my yoga website at its core, it feels appropriate to share this, just as I would with yoga students in class. Why? Because it’s honest and sometimes that can be useful to others. What if instead of ignoring or burying my anxiety in shame, I just gave it some space, attention and light? What if I name it to help put it in perspective and with a big breath, send it some love and see if it shifts or settles? In Comfortable with Uncertainty, Pema Chödrön offers the following, which I think is useful for this moment:

“Our habitual patterns are, of course, well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wishing for them to be ventilated isn’t enough. Mindfulness and awareness are key. Do we see the stories that we’re telling ourselves and question their validity? When we are distracted by a strong emotion, do we remember that it is part of our path? Can we feel the emotion and breathe it into our hearts for ourselves and everyone else? If we can remember to experiment like this even occasionally, we are training as a warrior. And when we can’t practice when distracted but know that we can’t, we are still training well. Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what’s going on.”

So this is where I am at the start of my journey. Comforted by the presence of old friends and trying to learn from my inner worry-wart as I start a trek that will take me the farthest from home I’ve ever been.

RIP, Dolores

I’ll close this inaugural blog in honor of Dolores O’Riordan, may she rest in peace and power. It’s impossible to have a favorite song on The Cranberries’ No Need to Argue album, which has seen me through so many challenging and defining moments in my life. But Dreaming My Dreams feels like the right pick for tapping into the wanderlust. I’ve yet to find the type of love that she expresses for her husband here, but it’s definitely the kind I hope for.

Here’s to our collective dreaming, friends and loved ones.