Of the spaces that shape us

When you grow up moving about, it’s hard to stay still.

Motion is ingrained within your body- every February, my body seeks out Scottish peaks, by April nostalgia for ancient dynasties sink in, and almost always, I find myself on my way back to Beijing. In the winter, my eyes rest uneasily if the ground is not covered in white. With every season, it becomes harder to answer their questions: who are you, where do you come from, what are you doing. 

No one, nowhere, nothing, I’ve always wanted to say. 

In every hidden village, every metropole, I seek commonality, history, traditions that have withstood the obsolescence of time. Writing as I make sense of the world is essential to my practice, but also an isolating experience. To make space for contemplation, one must push out the unnecessary, distraction- sometimes one must push away life itself.

The great struggle of my life has always been to find the space to think. You’d assume that in Canada, the second-largest territory of the world, one would be unlikely to have this problem. And yet, there never seemed to be space between the cultural vacancy of Toronto and my Montreal routine.

Travelling was never about experience but making sense of place. To know of the land by walking its terrain, covering 35 to 40km a day on foot, through mountains, through valleys, through highways (not recommended). 

As one learns to carve a path with nothing, one learns to preserve the essential-  to make time, to make space.