journey to edinburgh

In the suburb, Penarth, Wales, I am aware that I feel safe waiting at the little station, far from the big city: It is a time of global travel alerts, January 2017. I board the train that arrives, and we speed through the misty countryside into Cardiff. I am going to the mall to get a SIM card for my upcoming trip to Edinburgh, which will take 13 hours on 2 buses and which cost something like 5 euros. I'm budget traveling.

Cardiff is a commercial city. In Cardiff, you walk through tight, winding arcades and emerge on a plaza facing a bright, branching mall. Castle-side streets brim with brands and pubs, buskers and shoppers. Cardiff used to primarily export coal, until Margaret Thatcher shut down the mines in the 80s. Since then, it has been re-inventing itself for tourism.

I walk into the phone store and examine the display phones while I wait. I make the mistake of reading the news on the browser. On New Years a few days ago, a gunman killed 39 people in a nightclub in Istanbul. In a photo, the at-large suspect smirks on a street that looks like any–like the one outside, like the one in Penarth.

The thing about anxiety is that it makes you unable to discriminate between rational and irrational fear.

Tomorrow evening, I will take a bus to London, and then a 9-hour night bus to Edinburgh. I start imagining what if scenarios. I hope that saying “I am afraid of being accosted by ISIS” will be unanimously deemed irrational, but I have to say it out loud to see. So I call Laura, who says that I am stronger than I think. And Judith, who says that doing it will overcome the anxiety. And Anna, who helps me deconstruct my “web of hypotheticals,” she calls it. Nonetheless, I don't sleep, and I get to the bus station in a state of weariness.

But en route to London, night descends. And watching the stars, my spirit suddenly expands, appreciating the uncertainty ahead–feeling like uncertainty is a magical thing. 

At the London station, I join the crew of travelers in the cafe outside, journaling, reading, phone-scrolling, waiting. It’s a Wednesday night and I'm sure the bus to Edinburgh will be empty and that I will finally get much needed sleep. I'm wrong. The double-decker is full. Trying to sleep sitting upright on a night bus is like a fraught dance, where you find yourself falling off a cliff and waking up to the crash of your head. We arrive in Edinburgh before dawn.

My couchsurfing host, Pela, lets me into her apartment around 6 am and shows me to a bed in a little room. I wake up at 1, to the bright sun shining through the curtain. My body feels wrecked. “Why the hell am I in Edinburgh?” I think. My phone buzzes.

“Do you want some lunch?” Pela texted me.

I enter the kitchen. Pela, stirring, offers a comforting presence. Quiet voice, easy smile, serious mind, she stirs curry into a bowl before me. “Everybody likes curry, right?” she says.