This mood board is pretty much exactly my mood the last two weeks.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of art journaling, scrapbooking, collaging… whatever it’s called.
It’s been a meditative thing for me to do daily; rummaging through my piles of scraps, stickers, and clippings, and the simple act of gluing, taping, and arranging it on my traveler’s notebook in a way that feels ikigai for me.
It makes me feel like I’m traveling through my everyday life in a new explorative way.
Wherever you are, hope you’re well, healthy, and getting fresh air and sunshine whenever you can.
I’m a pisces, and I guess one of the traits my star sign is known for is that pisces can sometimes be escapists. I suppose in this way, I am in constant need of a break, a vacation, a sort of temporary sanctum to let my soul rest and reset.
Two years of this pandemic had me parched… thirsty… starving for time and space away. Even though I live in a beautiful paradise, the border lockdown made me feel like there was this invisible cage around the island suddenly and I couldn’t stretch my wings. My rock fever was high.
When my husband and I booked flights back in September for a December trip, the flights weren’t even confirmed, and it wasn’t exactly an enjoyable process because we were so anxious that we were spending all this money (the costs of travel are still outrageously expensive) and we wouldn’t even be able to go. Thankfully, things worked out.
Just the act of driving up to the Pago Pago International Airport felt like an adventure. Standing in line with our packed bags to check in for our flight felt like we had a golden ticket (we later realized we could have stood in the shorter first class line because my husband was a Pualani Gold member, which we did end up doing but after an almost two hour wait). The flight was delayed, but that’s okay because it meant we were still in travel mode, and it was exhilarating. The plane arrived and we eagerly walked the tarmac with our bags heavy and our spirits light.
We sanitized our seats, stowed our bags, and buckled up for the getaway we’ve been craving. Airplane food tasted better than it had in years, and Ian and I imbibed on the complementary hawaiian rum punch to celebrate.
I swallowed in the air of excitement and tasted color more vividly… I was rejuvenated.
And this was just the first leg of our flight/layover through Hawaii!
I’m back in American Samoa now, waiting out my government mandated quarantine at the Fatu O Aiga quarantine facility. It’s strange not being allowed to go outside really and being in a “real” lockdown. I’m currently on day 12 of 14, and I’ve tested negative on every antigen, PCR, and nasopharyngeal covid test I’ve taken over the past two months, which is wild!
And it’s been two months since I last came on here because whewww-I-really-needed-that-vacation.
I feel like I’m in some sort of third life crisis or something because I hadn’t really been feeling myself lately. I think I’m feeling… old/older?? Like, I want to take naps constantly and just do nothing a lot more often now. I don’t know, maybe it’s the covid fatigue but I’ve been so lazy that I couldn’t even get on here to share an update or a photo or two.
Vacation has healed me in some ways though. I’ve been reconnecting with analog journaling (travel journaling always makes me feel so nostalgic!) and it’s been lovely to be so excited by new stationery and scrapbooking journal spreads — using my hands and imagination, and mostly enjoying the process more than the final result. I’ve truly truly missed it.
But yeah — today I finally uploaded most of the photos off my camera’s memory cards… Hmm, see, that’s how lazy I’ve been! I hadn’t even off-loaded my memory cards until now from my trip and it’s two weeks after I’ve come back from said trip. I took quite a few photos as usual, but it reminded me that I need to put them somewhere so I don’t turn into one of those people that takes a zillion photos and does nothing with them (literally, everyone with a smartphone these days). So over the next days and weeks and maybe months I’ll slowly share photo journals from this very lovely, very needed vacation.
My little frazzled brain has been in hiding so if what I share looks/sounds like gibberish, oops sorry — please bear with me!
If you’re reading this, and made it this far. Thanks for being here.
