I had a dream...

Negev Desert
"Forty days and forty long nights
Since I set out across these desert plains
I'm following a call
The sweetest promise of them all
A long forgotten melody
Longing for a place I've never been"
Noam Blat, Love Line

I dreamt of a desert last night.

I was walking in it. Briskly placing one foot after the other, hearing the small stones crunch under the soles of my shoes. The ground was displaying a palette of earthly shades: orange, yellow, ochre, burgundy, brown. I looked up to see the sun high and proud in the sky; I was surprised to notice that it wasn’t scorching me – instead I felt nourished by its warmth.

There was nothing but sheer, vast, limitless space around me.

I walked fast. At some point I started to run. I never wondered where I was going. Destination was not a question. Yet there was a sense of purpose. Or maybe just a sense of running. A sense of my lungs working joyfully to accommodate the rapid air exchange, of my heart expanding and contracting, of my legs carrying me effortlessly the way they can’t anymore in my awake state (I have a knee condition). I was cutting through the space. I was running. Euphoria hit me with a near-nauseating force. I felt liberated.

Why such a dream?

Maybe because I had the privilege to hear Noam Blatt’s beautiful song “Love Line” live last night and its captivating images slept into my dreaming state.

Or maybe because I went to sleep feeling acutely lonely and my subconscious responded by serving a dream that would soothe me and lift me.

But the space, the open space. Devoid of cars, of buildings, of noise. Of relentless continuum of doing. Of people.

I remembered the enchanting places I’ve been to: driven or walked through, or gazed down at from some distant peak, or from the airplane.

New Zealand

 The Australian red outback. The Nullarbor plains. The moon-like landscapes of Ladakh. The tree-less, wind-swept paths of Nepal’s high Himalayas. The dangerous mirages of the Death Valley. The mysterious, whispering, cloudy plains of north-eastern Turkey. History –laden ruins of Ani at the border with Armenia. South of New Zealand’s South Island: diverse, astounding, surprising. And more, many more.

Ladakh

Then: Negev Desert in Israel. Climbing the rocks to look down at the fires of the beduin camps, sleeping close to the stars as foxes scuttled by.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, the desert has become to me a symbol of liberation (argh. As if I were the only one).

Somehow, somewhere, travelling has become to me means of shedding my usual reservations and anxieties. In the absence of everyday duties, expectations and the intermingled web of connections that make my world – only then – I can be bold. I become less of the anxiety-ridden and self-doubting little girl and more the Intrepid Explorer in muddy shoes, with a notebook filled with new foreign words, turning the shady corners, asking uncomfortable questions, venturing the roads less traveled. 

It is my secret slice of heaven; my tiny taste of fearlessness.

Australian Outback

It's not going to be easy, leaving Sydney. My life here has richness and diversity that continue to feed my senses, fill my heart and infect my mind with inspiration. I've been feeling very alive lately, and sometimes even happy.

But I can’t wait to relish the forbidden taste again.