📖 Story Text
I used to think travel was about ticking boxes, but the first time I stood at the edge of a caribbean dock, everything changed. There was a salt-sweet hush, a rooster somewhere laughing, and the entire day felt like a private secret. I had only one small pack with me — a threadbare notebook, an old camera, a ridiculous sunhat — and for the first time I let myself be a slow, stubborn thinker. Not the kind that solves puzzles quickly, but the kind that sits on a bench until the light makes sense. I wrote sentences I didn't expect, watched children invent games with coconut shells, and learned that carrying less let me notice more. Now when life gets noisy I picture that dock and that pack, and I try to give myself permission to be present, to be a thinker who listens before speaking. It sounds simple, but sometimes simple is where the deepest changes hide.