👋 for those of you that are new here: hi! i’m kora. i’m an artist, writer, and engineer. two years ago i left a 6-figure career behind and spent a year backpacking across the world. i’m currently writing a book on what i call the most transformative year of my life – part travelogue, part coming-of-age story.
if you’re interested in beta-reading my book, leave me a message below :)
🌅 the year is over
in may, i wrapped up my year of travel in peru.
in june, i found myself staring out the window in the surf town of tofino, british columbia. a friend i met in el salvador had graciously invited me to stay at his pad while he was away. from his house on the water i could watch the seaplanes come and go.
tofino is a small town: the downtown area is just a few blocks wide, a few blocks deep. it has a couple restaurants: fish fry, burgers, poke bowls. i surf, go on long bike rides, write my book. three weeks of restful, quiet solitude.
towards the end of my time in tofino, i join a local boat tour on a whim. there are a few others on the tour: a pair of swedish women in their 60s, a young couple from toronto. a mother, paula, and her 9-year-old son merle. when we arrive at the hot springs destination, i find myself sharing one of the pools with paula and merle.
we fall into a conversation, as one does, about percy jackson, hero of my childhood dreams – apparently still popular with kids these days. if you could choose, which greek god would you want to be? merle asks me. poseidon for sure, i tell him. i could swim wherever i want, talk to all the animals of the sea.
but what about hades! merle says excitedly. what about hades? i raise an eyebrow.
you could have skeletons carry you around, he says, splashing his hands in the water. you wouldn’t have to walk anywhere!
okay… that would be pretty cool, i admit.
and, he adds, you could talk to dead people. at this i notice paula look away.
when merle gets bored of us he clambers off to another pool, nimbly picking his way over the rocks. he’s a great kid, i say to paula. and i mean it. merle was only 9, yes, but i could tell he had heart. he is, paula smiles. he takes after his brother.
what’s his brother like? i ask.
he was kind, paula says, and for a few moments she says nothing. and – well, he passed away a few years ago, when he was eight.
i pause before i respond. i’m so sorry to hear that, i say gently. that must have been really hard.
yeah, she says. it was.
what was his name? i ask.
lorne, she replies. his name was lorne.
for the next little while we talk of lorne, his kindness, his sickness. paula tells me about how his passing affected the family, how it affected merle. we muse on grief and loss as the springwater melts our fingertips into paper. the pain never really goes away, she says. but it does get better.
when we arrive back at the tofino dock i give merle a high-five and a hug. come visit us in colorado sometime! he says. i can show you all my percy jackson books. i give his hair a ruffle and he runs off into the gift shop.
then i turn to paula. it was so nice meeting you guys, i say, and she pulls me in for a big hug. thank you, she says quietly, her small arms wrapped around my neck. thank you. when we finally pull away we both find ourselves with a little blur in our eyes.
how has my year of travel changed me most?
when my friends ask me the perennial question, this is the story i tell.
a year ago, i wouldn’t have been able to have a conversation like that. i wouldn’t have been able to connect so deeply with a stranger i had just met, to talk of a grief i didn’t know, been open and true enough for them to share their pain with me.
what’s changed is hard for me to pin down, even now. there’s maturity, yes. but there’s also a deeper sense of gratitude. the ability to hold space for others. the capacity for love.
📖 book update
my book, which seems like it’s about travel, is really about love.
i started writing this book in february. in the months since i’ve devoured books on storytelling, combed through stacks of memoirs and travelogues and novels for inspiration. i’ve learned as much as i can in order to properly tell my story – the story behind a year of backpacking, and all the internal shifts that took place during that time.
the writing process has been full of starts and stops – countless revisions, full-length cuts, and the hardest part: figuring out what i’m trying to say. but i am proud to say that the first full-length draft is done, and that i finished it in about than a year. *pats myself on the back*
as i wrote, i realized that my year on the road was not so much about the traveling itself, but the changes in the way i understood and saw the world around me. and all of these changes pointed towards an opening of the heart, a gradual blossoming of love inside me. love for the world in all its beauty; love for the people in it – family, friends, strangers that remained strangers, strangers that became friends. love for the messy, interwoven web of connections that make this life worth living.
for those of you who have read my recent writing, this may not come as a surprise. yes, the book will still have wild travel stories, profound moments of reckoning, and serious musings – not to mention photographs and journal entries to illustrate the journey from different angles. but the overarching theme – the one thing i want readers to take away from it all – is love.
if you’re interested in being a dedicated beta reader for my book, feel free to message me – i’d love to hear from you.
🏗️ projects
a few months ago, i founded a creative residency with a friend; tomorrow, EXPERIMENT’s first 4-week cohort begins in vietnam. we’re a group of ten creatives working across a variety of disciplines, and i could not be more excited. if you’re interested, you can sign up for our mailing list here or follow along on instagram here. we plan to host 2-3 more residencies this year, including a summer session in berlin.
in the meantime, i’ve been chugging along on my other projects when i have the free time. legal meetings have taken place, business plans are being made, etc.; progress is being made, slowly but surely. i really hope to share more about these soon.
it’s the new year, and i’ve been reflecting on how each of the past few years have marked a different phase of my life.
2023 was a year of exploration and uncovering.
2024 marked the end of that exploration, and a shift into projects that called my name.
2025 will be the year of progress. i’m going full-steam on these projects. big things will happen – you heard it here first.
sending love,
kora ♥
thank you Jeremy Scharf for reading an earlier version of this post.
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…good luck on the residency…i imagine much powerful creativity there…
That's how you know it was real travel and not just a long vacation - when you don't come back the same person. I'd love to read an early version of the book!