Raw and Changing: A Quick Journey Into the Unexpected...
Roads have a way of teaching me things I was not looking for. Not the cinematic kind of roads, not the ones designed for postcards or weekend escapes, but the ordinary ones I cross because work asks me to, because an errand needs to be done, because life insists on movement even when I feel still inside. These routes become familiar without ever becoming intimate, and yet they leave marks. I notice how my attention drifts when the bus turns a certain corner, how my thoughts loosen when the asphalt stretches straight and wide. There is something raw in these moments, something unfiltered, where my mind connects images without asking permission. A line of palm trees beside an industrial bus factory suddenly feels cinematic, not because it tries to be, but because it exists without caring about being seen. I find myself slowing down mentally, collecting fragments. A shadow here, a reflection there. I am not traveling anywhere special, yet something inside me shifts as if I were crossing an invisible border.
Most of these moments arrive unannounced. I am not searching for inspiration, and that is probably why it finds me. I see a scene and my brain does what it always does when it feels alive, it starts pairing things. That road with the palms instantly becomes a frame from Mindhunter in my head, not because it looks like a set, but because it carries that quiet tension of transit and waiting. The rhythm of movement, the pause between destinations, the sense that something is unfolding even when nothing obvious is happening. Then music slips in, Fly Like an Eagle, not playing anywhere but inside me, syncing perfectly with the pace of passing trees and concrete. These associations are deeply personal and unapologetically shaped by my cultural background. Very Western, very shaped by the images and sounds I grew up with. I do not judge that anymore. It is neither superior nor lacking. It simply is the language my mind speaks when it tries to make sense of the world.
Sometimes I think these small visual connections matter more to me than the destinations themselves. I arrive, I complete the task, I move on. What stays with me are the in between spaces. The road that reminded me of Beverly Hills even though I was nowhere near it. The light hitting a wall in a way that felt borrowed from a movie I watched years ago. These are not grand revelations. They are subtle, almost shy moments that tap me on the shoulder and disappear if I do not pay attention. I have learned to respect them without turning them into something bigger than they are. I do not need to explain them to anyone. They exist to remind me that my inner world is constantly rearranging itself in response to what I see. That creativity does not always come from effort, but from presence. From allowing the ordinary to stay ordinary while still letting it speak.
There is a quiet honesty in admitting that my relationship with places is emotional even when I pretend it is practical. I tell myself I am just passing through, just doing what needs to be done, but my mind is always working beneath that surface. It stores colors, rhythms, atmospheres. It connects them to stories, to series, to songs, to moods I cannot fully name. This is not nostalgia, and it is not longing. It is recognition. A recognition that my inner landscape is shaped by repetition and chance encounters more than by deliberate journeys. The unexpected is not dramatic here. It is gentle. It arrives as a feeling that something fits, even if I cannot explain why. That fit is enough. I do not need to turn it into art immediately. Sometimes noticing is already the point.
Change, I have learned, does not always announce itself with noise. Sometimes it slips in during a commute, disguised as a thought that lingers longer than usual. I leave these roads and return to them weeks later, and something feels different, not outside, but inside me. The same palms, the same factory, the same route, yet my response has shifted. That is how I measure movement now. Not by distance, but by perception. These quick journeys into the unexpected remind me that I am constantly evolving, even on days that feel repetitive. I am being shaped by what I notice and by what I allow to pass unnoticed. Writing about it now feels less like documenting and more like acknowledging. A quiet nod to the fact that the rawness of these moments is what keeps me attentive, grounded, and unexpectedly open to change.
Loved that kitty, though!!! 🫶🏽