If you’re reading this, then you’re doing a better job at keeping up with my life than I am, and I appreciate your earnest effort. I’m writing this partially because I was sitting at work and realized that it might be a good idea to start a website, and partially to keep track of my experiences as I travel across Europe for two months, beginning on August 7th. Another reason I’m doing this is because I’m generally not allowed to publicly write what’s in my hand-written journals. At the very least, it would be frowned upon. So, they will stay on paper bound by faux leather, and they will atrophy with time and grace, and this will stay on the internet until the internet dies or the connection to my website is slowed down enough to make your visit not worth it for you.
All of that being said, I am going to Europe with a laundry list of things I have spent painstaking moments meticulously planning out. I have: a general map of where I’m going in my mind, some vague plans to meet with friends in countries I’ve never been to and do not speak the languages of, a backpack with some basic amenities, a cellphone, and hopefully enough money to stumble my way back to Dusseldorf airport after two months of what I hope and believe will be a memorable and beautiful experience, whether that beauty be dream-like or like watching a head-on collision in slow motion.
I have vaguely planned to take this trip since I was a freshman in highschool. I did not do a lot of actual planning in the eight and a half years since I was a scared, problematic, and ever-changing fourteen-year-old shitwagon. I like to think it’s because my opinion on planning is that it’s best left to people with no desire to better themselves through spontaneity. And while I didn’t do a great deal of planning, I did do a lot of dreaming about this trip. I hope you enjoy reading my entries and perspective, and if you don’t, that’s okay too, because this is mainly for my mother, and I know that at the very least she will enjoy it.
This blog and my trip is dedicated to the memory of the late Dorothy Melick. I remember her as a Redwood. Her soul was strong and deeply rooted, her love was enormous and quiet, and she was never more condescending to any one person than she was to anyone else (that last one is more specific to her, less-so to the Redwood). Wherever you are in the great and nebulous ether, you are loved and you are missed and I am eternally grateful and better for having known you.
-Daylon M. Phillips (07/25/2018)
Daylon M. Phillips 