The Ticket

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two paper sparrows
folded in my open hand—
a wind waits to lift

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The envelope came without a return address. It was cream-colored, not quite white, the kind that feels thick to the touch and makes a sound when you slide your finger across it. I found it one morning resting against my front door like a tired traveler, tucked in beneath the daily paper and an advertisement for kitchen tiles. It held two plane tickets.

The destination wasn’t listed—just a voucher code, the kind you redeem online. Open-ended, flexible, valid anywhere on Earth, so long as you left within 90 days.

I brewed a strong cup of coffee, the kind I picked up a habit for after my third visit to Ljubljana, and sat on the balcony watching the fig tree. It swayed slightly in the summer breeze, leaves catching light like small hands reaching out for something just out of reach. The tree was a gift from my father, or more accurately, a descendant of a branch he once smuggled in his suitcase from a Mediterranean island. It had grown stubborn and tall, taking root in a too-small pot, just like me.

The first thought, oddly, wasn’t where I would go, but who I would bring. That question sat heavier than expected. Friends are scattered like seeds across continents. Some had responsibilities, others wouldn’t understand the way I travel—not for sightseeing, but for something quieter.

So I waited.

The answer came a few mornings later, walking through the hills behind my neighborhood. I passed a bakery just as it opened, the smell of warm bread lingering in the air like a promise. An old woman outside nodded at me, cradling her paper bag like it held something sacred. That fleeting moment—it settled something. I knew then: I’d go to Yakushima.

I had seen it once on a map, off the southern tip of Japan. A forest island, dense with rain and cedar trees older than memory. I once read that it rains there 300 days a year, and the moss grows so thick you could lie down in it and not feel the ground.

I invited no one. The second ticket I gave to a stranger at the airport—a student from Finland, who reminded me of myself at twenty: restless, kind, and just unsure enough to say yes.

We didn’t sit together on the plane. I watched a documentary on the mind and slept through the landing.

Yakushima was quiet in a way cities can’t imitate. Every path in the forest led somewhere, though most of the signs were unreadable to me. It didn’t matter. The silence was fluent. The rain was a presence, not a disturbance. It smoothed over everything.

On the second day, I found a cedar tree with a hollow large enough to step inside. I did, without thinking. Inside, the smell was damp earth and time. I took out a notebook, the same one I’ve used since that winter in Lisbon, and wrote down one sentence:

“To find your path, sit where there are no roads.”

That night, back at the guesthouse, the host offered me fish grilled over a small flame. We didn’t speak much. He refilled my tea, I nodded. Outside, the rain fell without pause. I thought about the student, wherever they were now, and hoped the second ticket had found its way somewhere meaningful.

On the third day, I rented a bicycle and pedaled slowly along the coast. I stopped at a vending machine in the middle of nowhere and bought a hot can of coffee. I held it against my face before I drank it. Warm aluminum. Bittersweet. A quiet joy.

I passed a group of schoolchildren walking in the other direction, holding umbrellas that were far too large for their small bodies. One of them waved. I waved back.

That night, I dreamed of a younger version of myself walking through a forest just like this one, calling out names I no longer recognized.

Travel, I’ve learned, is not escape. It’s not indulgence. It’s a return. To something forgotten. To versions of yourself hidden under the weight of daily repetition. The flight isn’t the freedom. The silence that follows is.

Sometimes, you sit beside strangers who tell you the story of their entire life between two train stations. Sometimes you miss your stop.

Sometimes the light slants just right through the trees and you remember the name of your first dog. Or your mother’s hands wringing water from a towel. Or the exact way the sand felt under your feet on a childhood beach. These moments don’t announce themselves. They arrive like the wind.

One afternoon, I found a shrine tucked beneath the roots of an enormous tree. There were small offerings—coins, folded paper, a pale blue marble. I left behind a button that had fallen off my coat years ago but that I kept in my wallet out of habit. It felt like the right exchange.

By the seventh day, I had forgotten what my own voice sounded like. I took long walks without direction, let myself be guided by smells and sounds: frying oil, a distant bell, the rustle of something unseen.

I watched a heron take off from a stream and vanish into the fog.

People talk about accumulating experiences like stamps in a passport, but I no longer care about the count. I care about the depth. The quiet echo a place leaves in your chest long after you’ve gone. The taste of sea salt on your lips at dusk. The kindness of a stranger refilling your tea without asking.

And so, if you handed me two tickets again, I’d do the same.

Choose a place off the map. Give one away. And carry nothing but questions.

If this stirred something in you, subscribe and walk this winding path with me. The road is long, but sometimes, the right words are a kind of travel too.