Natural Hot Springs, Near Bella Coola | British Columbia, July 2017
The thought of traveling alone can make even the strongest woman cower behind weak ideas. The Hollywood movies about kidnapping, the evening news horror stories of college girls gone missing during spring break, the woman who disappeared running alone at night...we're primed to expect the worst.
Stop it.
Traveling alone is a serene thing and although the world has its dark corners, most of it is bright and beautiful and good people, like you, want to help at every turn. Just don't take any shit from anybody. But, I understand from experience that there is a particular sort of fear, an exposure, that comes from being a woman alone, and a lot of it has to do with the way we perceive ourselves within society.
Women are always being looked at; we are always being judged and we know it.
For our appearance, our actions, for the way we speak, for what we choose to wear. An objective law of averages shows that most the world still rates women based on their figures, where the only figures men generally have to worry about are in their bank accounts.
That breeds self-awareness, which breeds insecurity, which leads women to hide instead of venturing out in the world and taking the risks that make life invigorating. The law of averages says most women will never travel solo.
So, lemme take a minute to say something big--because the world is always telling us to shrink ourselves: fuck average.
Take the solo trip, ladies. Live fearlessly, because how the world treats us should never affect how we treat ourselves. Don't apologize for who you are. Ever. Acceptance is the radical notion that simply BEING is reason enough, and you owe yourself to nobody.
So here is me, solo with a 10 second timer, balancing my camera on a stone, treating myself to a natural hot spring and trying to capture this serene moment with myself, in love with each fleeting second of time passing like birds through a window. A 2 second flutter of the shutter and I'm frozen in time and space forever, adrift in meaningless pixels that sublimate my existence in this very second of my very short time here on Earth.
Exist unapologetically...because someday you won't.