A close friend has recently been named Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow 2007-2008. She's pulled up her roots from Columbia MO, and is moving from Missouri to Virginia via Toronto. Makes perfect sense to me. I'm kinda envious of her road trip actually, and these words, mostly from one of Tove Jansons' books, struck a cord with me:

“Early one morning in Moomin Valley Snufkin woke up in his tent with the feeling that autumn had come and it was time to break camp.

Breaking camp in this way always comes with a hop, skip, and jump! All of a sudden everything is different, and if you’re going to move, you’re careful to make use of every single minute, you pull up your tent plugs and douse the campfire quickly before anyone can stop you or start asking questions you start running, pulling on your rucksack as you go, and finally you’re on your way and suddenly quite calm, like a solitary tree with every single leaf completely still. Your camp site is an empty rectangle of bleached grass. Later in the morning your friends wake up and say: He’s gone, autumn’s coming.”

I have been very calm and introvert the last few days. I always leave in the same fashion Snufkin did. No clear dates, no clear plans, people don’t really know when I will go, just that the time is getting close.

I always operate with clear dates, just leave it to the last minute – and I'm famous for calling up people on the same day when I just happen to be in London, San Fransisco or similar.

As a freelancer, I find it very hard to plan ahead – never know when I might stumble across a good story or land another cool assignment. Money talks and walks, and – a freelancer from the tender age of 18 – I always come home from my travels with good stories and am very skilful at collecting string. Which reminds me, I haven't been stateside for years: I need an employer with deep pockets, which is a contradiction in terms if you work in the field I do - newspaper with deep pockets, dream on...