we are so back

November 3, 2025

I need to start writing again. And by “need” I mean: I’m suffering without it.

I aged another year recently, and with a bit of birthday reflection, came to the conclusion that what my previous year of life had been lacking was art. Creativity. In its simplest, smallest form.

Note: I also indulge the idea that life is art, and it’s safe to say I have been living. But, for current purposes, things like writing, reading—even consuming television and film—have been for the most part sorely neglected.

So, here I am. And where I am is shoved into the back corner of a minivan on the first morning of a group tour en route to Merzouga. The Sahara Desert.

I’m a few days into a few week-long work holiday in Morocco. It’s my first “new place” in some time, since I left Sri Lanka in May. And I’m hoping that with a new place comes new stimulation, new thoughts, experiences, questions, realizations, epiphanies… something to write about.

Please. Something. Anything.

But if this year was any indication, I’m not so sure even a life-altering event would compel me to sit and write. (I’ve been carrying around the same notebook for a year. It’s maybe a quarter full? My keyboard certainly hasn’t seen further action.)

Now, in the back corner of this minivan to Merzouga, I’m contemplating why.

Well, not exactly. I know why. I’m just finally writing it down.

Writing brings me closer to my self. Recall: this blog was always a journal (if this even goes on the blog, and it doesn’t have to, Maggie). I‘ll admit, readily, that my inner world has not been the most peaceful place this year. 

It makes sense that I don’t want to spend time in it. I don’t want to spend time dissecting myself. Even now, writing this down, I’m zoning out. Fully dissociating. Mind zooming off to any number unrelated things. 

I don’t want to spend more time in my inner world than I already am. I want to spend it out in the world, living. Which is what, here in Morocco, I am hoping to do.

But for now I am in the back corner of a minivan en route to Merzouga.

So it goes this year, I arrive to a point on the page and there’s nothing left to say. So I’m going to stop and listen to some music which makes life feel like a movie—hopefully a happy out-the-window montage, not a melancholic one—and eat some apple cake, instead of an apple.

Maggie

—

January 20, 2026

”Recall: this blog was always a journal.” 

Says I. And I am not wrong.

But the fact is—and anyone who has ever kept a journal will relate—sometimes journals can get boring. Repetitive. Oh so mundane. And other times, that which goes into a journal is simply not meant to come out.

I am hopeful I feel more like sharing this year. Because I am well aware of a desire I have, which is to deepen my sense of what we might call “community”.

Solo travel lends itself to this concept in an abstract way—but not necessarily a deep one. Not in the way I have been lacking after 3 and a half years of moving around every 3 months.

And so, I hope to share more in 2026. Here and now, I inaugurate another year of travel—and the way things are shaping up, what a year of travel it shall be. Here, I might also stay connected to the community I already have.

Or at the very least, hear my own voice more clearly. 

I’ve arrived at the point on the page where there’s nothing left to say. So I’m going to stop and listen to some music which makes life feel like a movie—definitely a happy one. The coldest week of winter is upon us, and conveniently, I’m gone, landing in a country quite special to me.

ONWARDS,

Maggie