Impermanence, My Sneaky Friend…
9.23.25
There is something to be said about the beauty within each soul we meet along the journey of self-discovery, the adventure of a lifetime where each encounter feels like a mirror reflecting the depth of love we’re here to share and emit into the material world around us. During my days here in Peru, gratitude overflows. Each birdsong at sunrise meets me with a new realm of humility, inviting me to lean in a little deeper.
Ahh, impermanence… it meets me with a smirk. A sneaky friend we often forget to notice. It reminds me of its presence in those moments of “last hugs” - or rather, “last for now.” I breathe in the scent of someone’s embrace, in this case, my dear friend Samira, a beautiful human from Germany that I am grateful to now call a close sister, carefully tucking it into a sacred mental memory box. We’ve all done this. The human experience is achingly beautiful in this way, isn’t it? One day, I’ll be in a small European café when a familiar scent drifts through the air, and with eyes closed, I’ll be transported: back to the moment, the person, the place. Back to the friend I have named Samira that was one of the most inspiring women I have ever met, just 32 years old and has seen over 38 countries. Suddenly, this world feels tenderly small yet overwhelmingly vast all at the same time.
Goodbyes and see-you-laters - before a plane, a bus, or a big leap into a long-held dream you’ve courageously leaped into, pass through the mind like relics from an ancestral china cabinet. Each one holds a story, a lineage of love and change.
Here in the airport, I’ve slowed down enough to feel it all. Rain fuses with the water gathering in my eyes as I let these acknowledgements settle. I write them down, even if they land on the page like a scattered puzzle. Nearby, a mother laughs as her baby learns to coo; another reminder of how sacred this life truly is. And then there’s the coat… Perhaps you’ve been there too: in a place where languages feel like a coat you can’t quite shrug off yet, wrapping around conversations you long to have like wind across your shoulders.
Yet even this is an invitation — one of many — guiding me to each next destination. There’s a language that reverent eye contact and soft acceptance can speak between worlds. We live in an age of endless distractions, but what if we slowed down enough to learn the language beneath language? The quiet one. The language of love. Sometimes it’s a smile offered to a stranger you’ll never see again. In my travels, I’ve found this is the most essential language — one that can’t be listed on a résumé, but perhaps should be learned by every heart.
For I have taught the importance of slowing down in a world that demands us to HUSTLE and SPEED UP and DO MORE and be this! Be that! Not that, THIS! You get it. But for the first time, in the deepest place of sincerity I can feel, I share this with you - I finally know what it means to trust the journey. I find solace in knowing that “knowing” is relative as we are always growing, changing, and shifting timelines along with the lines on our faces that speak of it.
Anyways, if you have made it this far, I hope you find something that inspires you to slow down, perhaps all it takes is to notice, or maybe, just maybe, if I am lucky, it was within the words you’ve read here.
Until we meet again. Bless the journey. And so it is.
— T
Listening to “Open” by Mooji as I write this in the Lima Airport following my goodbye to Sami and our smiley, Italian, whale-loving friend, Ianco.
