Anywhere. Elsewhere. So simple, yet…so simple. When I think of all the crazy domains I’ve bought over the years—I wonder who the wackos are that pulled “theflashlady“, “pedventures” and “posttrumpaticstressdisorder” out of redemption!—it was these two words, side-by-side, in their simple simplicity, anywhereelsewhere, that finally struck me as the one. So, it only took 15 years and hundreds of dollars of domain dabbling for me to find a domain that sums up my realities, my delusions, my very own causa esse—and I can’t believe I’m still not sick of it!
This anywhere elsewhere epiphany happened a few weeks before I turned 50, quite possibly inspired by celebrating my fiftieth year on this planet by visiting anywhere new, every month of my milestone birthyear. I wanted to take a BIG chunk out of my virtual list of places—near and far—that have remained high-priority destinations since I first started traveling obsessively. And I guess I also wanted to finally just accept my never-changing desire to be elsewhere.
Even though I bought this domain a few years, I just started moving my existing blog to it now. Mostly out of necessity, I wasn’t maintaining the software on my old blog because I do this kinda crap all day everyday and I just couldn’t bear turning something else I love to do into work. But I really have been meaning to update this space for years and resume blogging more consistently when I travel. So whenever there’s a milestone birthday looming (double-nickels next, baby!) I spring into administrative action!
When I first started travel blogging in 2010, I didn’t think it would last past that specific trip. I just bolted a WordPress site onto my triciakarsay domain under “guatemala“, thinking it would be, at best, a hobby, a fad, and at worst a horrible, horrible mistake (oversharing on the inter webs, probably not the best idea). Ha! I’ve never been more wrong about anything. And now, unfortunately, you have had to endure way way way too many musings about this meaningful meaningless migration.
UPDATE
October 18, 2020 (one year later, almost TO THE DAY, crazy how quickly a lifetime can pass)
So I’m anywhere right now. An Airbnb in Scottsdale, Arizona to be precise. I literally went anywhere to try and preserve what’s left of my sanity, to try and feel just a little more like myself in a world that has left all of us feeling batshit crazy. Batshit crazy. Dot com. (Yup I just looked that that up and of course it’s not available. I would link it, but it has “potential security risk” written all over it).
I was so happy when I first noticed the “anywhere” feature on Kayak. Have you seen it? I don’t use it often, even though it does feel like a feature that was developed specifically for me, but it sure came in handy for this desperate trip! It’s already October and international travel is still a quarantine crapshoot. And I already chickened out of working remotely in Bermuda over the summer, so I was looking for anywhere domestic, anywhere with serious COVID protective measures in place and cases trending downward, of course, anywhere but here. Enter the Kayak NYC to anywhere fare map…and hellllloooo Scottsdale!
Daily shifts in pandemic management across the country coupled with my own worries about getting and spreading COVID stopped me from booking countless times. I have never been more stressed or conflicted about traveling, ever (and I traveled to Kenya on September 15, 2001). I’ve been really lucky so far—still employed, seemingly uninfected, haven’t lost a close family member to COVID (thankfully) and besides some silly inconveniences and self-preservation desires (when can I go back to Spain?!?!?), my day-to-day life hasn’t changed that much. Well, on the surface anyway. We are all forever changed by this.
I remember a few months ago, in the beginning of this endless madness, when field hospitals were popping up in parks around NYC and I was sitting in my apartment working like it was any other day. Employed. Uninfected. Home. Elsewhere. The surreality was unbearable. It still is.
Anywhere elsewhere. That’s where I am right now and where I will always be.