The Long Way Around

In 2006, after my study-abroad program in Prague ended, I took a trip to Croatia with one of the girls I had been living with. Michelagh and I flew into Dubrovnik, on the south-eastern coast of Croatia, and were flying out of Split, on its north-western coast. We had a loose idea of the places we would like to see, and the idea was to make our way up the coast, traveling from place to place, and arriving in Split the day before our flight back to Prague. One of our last destinations was the city of Havar, located on the island of Havar, one of the largest islands right off the coast.

Because of the way that this type of travel goes however, when we went to get our bus tickets to Havar, we discovered that because of the length of the trip, we hadn’t left ourselves enough time to both see the city and make it to Split in time to catch our plane. The woman at the bus station suggested that instead of taking the most common route, we take a bus to another port along the coast, and then take a ferry to the island. The catch was that the ferry would take us to the opposite side of the island from the city of Havar. The woman assured us that there must be a bus that would take us to the city however, and so we happily set off. The bus ride was hours and hours shorter than it would have been had we been traveling the regular route, and the ferry was located in a tiny town full of Croatians on beach vacations. We got gelato and Michelagh bought a pair of flippers and a snorkel mask and by the time we got on the ferry we were ecstatic with how beautiful everything was and what ingenious travelers we were, to find the hidden routes that would get there faster and would let us see what was off the beaten path to boot!

I’m sure you can guess where this is going. We got to Havar the island, and disembarked from the ferry, only to find ourselves in a one-street town which did (!) have a bus, but since it was (groan) SUNDAY AFTERNOON, the next bus wouldn’t leave until 5am the next morning. We spoke with the town’s only taxi driver, who would drive us to Havar the city, but for just over $200 US. Since $200 US was about what we had combined to last us the rest of the trip, this was not an option. We tried to hitchhike, but to no avail, and ended up sitting for a few hours in the sweltering shade of an old abandoned brick building at the crossroads where the road that led into town left the road that served the island. Finally we gave up and found a room to rent for the night.

At 5am the next morning we were groggily standing outside of the house we had been staying in, backpacks on, waiting for the bus to drive by. When the “bus” showed it was a small white van full of Croatians commuting to work. We climbed in and stowed our packs as well as possible (read: on our laps) and the van took off, flying across the deserted road which climbed and wove through the hills.

Havar is famous for its lavender, which grows both wild and cultivated across the island. This is not lavender like you are used to – that powdery, stuffy smell infused into soaps and constituting overwhelming perfumes. This is another element altogether and as we sat in that small white van that morning, clinging to our seats as the van flung itself around curves in the road, the smell of wild lavender blew through the wide-open windows. Havar, like the rest of coastal Croatia, is all rocky cliffs plunging into the indigo sea, and as the van drove the scenery would abruptly change from green, rocky hillside, strewn with lavender bushes and white stone houses, to impressively tall and steep cliffs falling away into the sea.

I predict that this will be one of the abiding memories of my life and it certainly was not part of any plan or recommended by any travel guide. I did not set out in search of it and in fact would probably have avoided it if I could have. It was the most indirect way to get to where we were going, and it cut down on how much time we had to spend there for sure, but knowing what I know now, I might make sure to stay overnight in that little town on a return trip to Croatia, just to re-experience that bus ride.

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For awhile now I’ve been ruminating on the idea that I don’t really know exactly what I’m doing or where I’m going. I think I used to, in that childish way where your dreams are formed by half-imagined pieces of things, and never really involve work. You were going to be a firefighter, but when you saw it in your mind’s eye you were wearing the suit, and climbing down a ladder, holding a child who was clinging to your neck, the crowd below clapping. Paradoxically your firefighter’s suit was crisp and clean, and there was no similar dream of crawling through the flames, sweating and hot, scared that the fire-damaged building might collapse around you at any moment.

I think one of the reasons it’s so hard not to know is because I used to. I used to have these ideas about what I was going to do and who I was going to be when I was a “grown-up”, but now that I find myself here, at the precipice of adult-hood, I find that all the things I have learned over the years have worn away at those dreams. I am still holding firmly on to the honorable intentions so many of my dreams proposed to follow, but without the framework the dreams provided, the intentions can start to feel more like anchors than buoys.

I sort of kinda maybe have some half-formed ideas, and the knowledge of a few pretty concrete things that do or don’t make me happy. A couple of moral values I’d like to hold onto, a few financial goals I’m shooting for, a very loose 5-year plan. Or whatever. You know? And even those things I’m calling concrete or “plans” – well, I’m pretty convinced that they would give way under the sweetest of breezes.

I have been pretty worried about this. Well, I suppose worried isn’t quite the right word. I’ve been panicked by this a little. Ok, a lot. Not knowing where or what or when or how? I find that difficult. Challenging. Recently however, more days than not, I am not so worried. Not so worried, or concerned, not panicked.

The thing is, looking back, I think it’s often taken an indirect route for me to get to where I was going.

And I’ve been pretty fortunate with where I’ve ended up.

I feel relatively confident that I’m going to get somewhere, even if it’s not where I once thought it would be. I’m pretty convinced of the fact that there are a million ways to lead a satisfying and meaningful life, and recently I’ve been able to keep that in the forefront of my mind.

It’s very cliché all this – this idea that life is the journey (the bus ride) not the destination, the idea that the most amazing moments are those we could never plan for or anticipate, that the road less-traveled is the road to take. I don’t know that it’s always true - I definitely have had amazing moments that have been planned out, that are in every guidebook, and learned things I needed to know from the most conventional of sources – but I know that like in the story above, I have in the past been truly blessed by the fact that my plans were laid to waste or that I didn’t have plans in the first place.

And at some point, it’s clear to me that it doesn’t really matter whether or not I agree to this reality of my life. I can fight it with my wide-eyed panic if I like, but that won’t fill in all these blank spaces I am so thrown by.

I am just going to have to take The Long Way Around. And just trust that it will get me where I need to be going.




















P.S. Full disclosure: “The Long Way Around” is a song. By the Dixie Chicks. I know. I know.