Maia's (Mis)adventures

People have always found my reluctance to take modern medicine a bit odd. Even my mom, who knows plenty of homeopathic remedies and agrees with a holistic approach to medicine, still suggests I take ibuprofen when anything is bothering me, and rolls her eyes in frustration when I say I'd rather deal with it. Well, turns out, there's a reason I never trusted that stuff. Research now shows that ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and other over the counter pain relievers, affect more than just our physical pain, they also dull our emotional pain. "Oh, well that sounds like a great side effect, right?" Wrong. When you dull your ability to be hurt or upset, you also diminish your ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. You are deadening your empathy for the people around you, which in turn, effectively makes you stop caring about them. When we stop being empathetic and lose our ability to see someone else's perspective, and why they may be hurting, we make it ea

At times, I find myself wishing we could type in accents, because I'm almost certain you're not reading it how I'm writing it. But such is the risk we take in sharing our thoughts (or art, some might say) with the world, is that we set it out to be, potentially and probably, misinterpreted. Oh well. I'd like to keep sharing anyway, if that's alright with you. Do me a favor though? Read this one in an English accent ;) There's no room for heads down here, no time for people living out of the moment. You keep your head down, you're likely to miss it. Miss the small faded sign pointing in the direction of a nearly invisible footpath. Miss the bus, zipping down the narrow village roads, intending to pass you by unless you wave it down. Miss the next smiling face, looking your way and offering advice you never actually asked for, but you're glad once you've had it, as it comes in hand later. This place was built by people present in their moment, and th

Packing up my bag and chatting with the hostel keeper, he catches me off guard with a simple statement. "Yeah, you meet a lot of interesting people working here, it's nice. None quite as interesting as you though." "Sorry, what?" I'd only stayed a night and had a couple conversations with the guy. "Well, yeah. You're always smiling. How do you do that?" "Oh, well..." I don't want to tell him I'm here to escape the hate in my heart. "I've been angry for a long time...it's not worth it. Life is better when you smile." After a day and a half of transit, I'm finally in Ripon waiting to meet my first Workaway host. Having been in four countries yesterday between breakfast and dinner I'm looking forward to settling in to something for a few weeks. I'll be working on a farm in Low Row, Swaledale, which is in the Yorkshire Dales National Park in England. It's a tiny, tiny village. With one inn,

We have time... Plenty of time... So much time... We're late. We're huffing it through the streets, walking too quickly for conversation, and counting down the minutes to each other til my train departs.  Seven minutes. "If I miss this train I'm gonna hurt you," I jibe. Bruno picks up the pace. "You won't miss it, and if you do, there's another. It's gonna be okay." Four minutes. We rush through the doors to check the board for the platform. Two minutes. Annnd....my train's not there. "I thought you said 12:52, right?" "Yes." "It's not here...this is not okay." This from the one who just said it WOULD be okay...not fun. Slight panic starts to boil up, but I push it down. "Let's find someone to ask." We tear through the halls and onto the platform, asking people in uniforms along the way, but no one seems to know. One man tells us the train doesn't exist and he's never heard o

I've started the next leg of my journey right by making a friend in the airport. (See, like I said, they're there to be found or made when you're willing.) We talk a while...where we've been, where we want to go, what I should do in his town, what our occupations are (were). Turns out he travels for work, building the sets for Ninja Warrior and other TV shows. Having seen Ninja Warrior and how the obstacle courses are run, I'm excited by this topic and we get into a whole conversation about how the TV and movie industry works here (and I have to say, the system of payment for artists and creative people in France seems far superior to ours). Once everyone is boarded and we've taken off, he comes to collect me. "There's an empty seat beside me, if you'd like to take it." I smile, "Yeah, okay." You never know where you'll meet a friend. Lots of bunny business Easter weekend I'm welcomed to Strasbourg the same way I'm

One boat, two trains, one tram, five flights of stairs, round about 9 hours. We've made it to our friends place is Nice, France. Having visited this city the first time six years ago, some things have changed, but it greets us with the familiarity of an old friend. We're met at the train station by Caetano to lead us to his mothers home and at the gate of the building two more brothers join the gang. We enter and immediately the house comes to life as the four brothers pick up their instruments and the music swells. My mom and Madelena, our gracious host, exchange stories over glasses of wine and pots of cooking food, and I take it all in. A lovely welcome. "What was it that had you so stressed?" Omar asks casually, kicked back on his elbows, watching the people go by. But I'm drawing a blank. Here, sprawled in the green grass, scarves off and jackets open to catch the radiant rays of sunshine, watching kids run and scream...families laugh...teenagers in circl