Feature photo taken at Palisades Park — Santa Monica, CA

Saturday, November 9, 2019

It wouldn’t be enough to visit a landmark, take a pic for Instagram, and share with the world I’m there. Fulfillment isn’t in showcasing my traveling ability to appreciate beautiful places, statues, or infrastructures, it’s something else…

Traveling is an affirmation for the soul; we are meant to seek new places of old creations and become the allowing self who experiences the journey.

A selfie is proof, so what constitutes your checking for who cares?

Some of us travel to be looked up to, others explore to venture into new cultures and see what in the world our world is oblivious to. We can be nosy creatures, and live to say, “this landmark looks more beautiful with me in it…”

I took the feature photo before running along the Pier, just hours after the 2016 Los Angeles WordCamp. The song which marked it a memorable run, “Hold On” by Alabama Shakes, ran me crazy.

What is it about a song that takes us to places we aren’t at? Our living rooms become the night club, the gym becomes a warrior training facility, because the music on this run turned the Santa Monica Pier into the stage of my first air-saxophone performance.

Hold on a bit longer, I’ll be back. To run a beach and dance to places music allows me to be at. Maybe the music is the landmark?

Forever existing in a place music invites me to thrive at…

-Budd