In the spring of 2021, I drove from Portugal to Sweden with my mother and our dog Valentina.
We didn’t take a plane.
We didn’t rush.
We took the long road — across borders, through villages, past forests and fields — in my first car, a 190D Mercedes that had just turned 30.
Restoring her was part of the story.
Not just mechanical.
Ritual.
Caring for something old, something loyal, something that had carried me before — felt like a kind of inner alignment.
A whisper of “I still believe in what endures.”
This trip wasn’t just about moving north
It was about:
Slowing down after a globally disorienting year
Listening to what wanted to emerge next
Feeling the rhythm of the seasons
Being with my mother in a way that felt both soft and strong
And while the route stretched across Europe, what it really revealed were three quiet truths that I still carry with me today:
1. The Practice of Love Knows No Object
There’s a tenderness in restoring something that no longer “needs” to be fixed.
The car didn’t ask for it. The journey didn’t demand it.
But doing it — slowly, carefully, attentively — reminded me:
Love is a way of being.
It’s not reserved for people or causes.
It can be directed toward machines, journeys, breakfasts, memory, silence.
We become who we are through the way we care.
2. Learn by Doing
There were things I had to figure out on that trip — unexpected routes, detours, the rhythm of shared space, old fears about doing things “right.”
And as always, the lesson came in motion.
You don’t have to know everything before you begin.
Some clarity only arrives once you’re already moving.
So much of growth is this:
You learn by doing.
By driving the car, not reading the manual.
3. All Transformation Is a Journey of Many Steps
Crossing a continent by road teaches you this:
Big things happen in small stretches.
One rest stop. One coffee. One song on repeat.
The same is true of identity shifts.
The same is true of healing.
What looks like sudden change is just the visible tip of hundreds of quiet, cumulative moments.
Tiny pivots. Honest pauses. Daily choices that feel too small to matter… until they do.
Traveling With the Birds
That year, I followed the seasons.
I drove north in the spring — to spend summer living on a boat.
And when autumn came, I returned south again… with the birds.
There was something ancient and natural about it.
Like my body remembered a migration older than planning.
I Promised to Tell the Boat Story Next…
At the end of the video I recorded on that road trip, I said:
“Next, I’ll tell you the story of the boat.”
I didn’t. Not yet.
But the story is still there — resting.
Because some stories take longer to unfold.
And maybe the promise to tell it is part of the story itself.
Are you in motion too?
If you’re in a season of quiet becoming — one step at a time, not fully knowing what’s next — I want you to know:
That is the transformation.
