"It must be so nice to be able to reconnect to the Motherland," my boss says to me today, after I tell him I am going to Nigeria for the holidays. I have no doubt there was a rhythmic drumbeat, maybe something from The Lion King, playing in his mind when he said this. He continued, "I don't really have...I mean I could go to Connecticut," he drifted off, shrugging his shoulders. I imagine that is why people like him become Buddhists and visit the Dalai Lama.

"I really just want to see my grandmother and eat her home cooking," I replied. This is true. And if I only do this, I will be happy. But my boss doesn't get it; he doesn't have people. He is adopted and, now that his parents have passed away, he is orphaned. Both of his daughters died well before their time. I imagine that family is somewhat of a distant reality to him, and life more of an abstraction now.

I can see how much he longs to genuinely connect with me, with anyone, but he is too busy abstracting -- my family and heritage and even my hair -- to really get me. Some guy actually asked me, tonight, whether my dreadlocks were a part of my culture. I replied, "It's just a style." End of discussion. I do not particularly enjoy bursting bubbles, but I don't know why people find messages buried in my hair. I am not that obvious.

I have not packed a thing yet. I actually went to a web site today that, with a few questions answered, will spit back a list of things to take with you on your trip. I am not big on packing or planning, and I think I will end up throwing a few random things in a bag anyways.

I spent a bit of time looking for my passport today. I realized that I hadn't seen it in a couple of years, which became an issue since I'm trying to book a flight to Nigeria. I found it more easily than I thought I would and, like I suspected, it's expiring soon. It's slightly depressing that I haven't used it more in the past ten years since I renewed it last.

I went to Ghana in 2001, the summer of my sophomore year of college. I have this crazy video of myself, rehearsing with a dance troupe in the dead of night in a suburb of Accra. A lone lightbulb casts a triangle of light across a cement enclosure lined with a fence, flanked with a battalion of drummers. I am whirling around in the middle of a circle of dancers, my hair in a short afro, wearing a gauzy black shirt over a floor-length skirt.

I forgot my change of clothes that day, the last rehearsal before my plane ride back to US. I had gotten lost on my way to the enclosure, coming from a different part of town than usual. I was wandering through the darkened street, when a pair of headlights approached me, and a kind taxi driver offered to help me find the place. We drove around madly for a half hour, before we stumbled upon another black woman wandering the streets who was also in need of a ride.

It turned out that she was a Stanford alum, though a decade older than me, and a former member of Kuumba Dance Ensemble, also like me. She had a video camera with her and agreed to come with me to rehearsal and tape us, so that I would have something to show for my time spent (I took no photos of rehearsals out of respect). My karma restored, we found the enclosure. Cut to me whirling around in the dark, the vision of which now simply amazes me. I am trying to remember this young woman I once was, the steps I took along the path to get where I am now. Wiser, I suppose, but in many ways missing my youthful bravado.

All of this to say. There are various colored stamps inside this tiny book with my picture in it -- Belize, South Africa (a couple of times), Brazil, Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria (a couple of times) -- but there are far too many empty spaces for it to be expiring. Maybe it is my own will that has expired? I dreamt of London and Paris and Havana and Marrakesh, but perhaps I lacked the courage to do more than dream. When I was younger, I did not dwell on dreams and I did not plan; I simply left.

I met a woman at Hedgebrook who has lived everywhere in the world, from Yosemite to Amsterdam and Kenya. She took her first semester college tuition, twenty years or so ago, and traveled cross country with it. She hasn't stopped since, although she recently purchased a home in New Jersey and is now, from what I gather, reconsidering it.

She does not know this, but she is my hero. I think there is wisdom in stones, especially those that roll -- gathering no moss, being shaped by time and the earth and universal flow. There is a natural order in remaining in motion, in seeking disorder.

I only wish I could say this to her in a way that she would believe it. I think she may feel flighty and haphazard about her lifestyle, but I think that life is full of expiration dates -- on relationships, jobs, leases, countries of residence -- and one need only know how to recognize and respond to them. The truly courageous and unstuck people simply let it expire, and move on. That said, I don't think most people do.

I certainly have expired on many fronts, but am hanging on for dear life. I have wanted to do some drastic thing with my appearance for some time now, be it cutting my locks, or dying them again, getting a new wardrobe, but I inevitably find myself still feeling awkward in my skin. I have wanted to simply move anywhere else in the world for no reason at all but to encounter my own difference in that environment and thereby discover myself again, yet find myself straggling here in NYC. I have wanted to really be a starving artist, instead of a gainfully employed professional sneaking her writing in on the subway and on her lunch break; but for some reason, here I sit, and here I stay.

I don't know what any of that means, but I do think expiration dates can be used to reevaluate the status quo. If it hasn't been working for you, let the universe help you change it. For now, I definitely need some more stamps in my passport. That much I know is true.

I'm leaving town for my girlfriend's wedding in Botswana this weekend. We went to undergrad together at Stanford and have been each other's family in NYC for the past couple of years. She's from all over -- South Africa, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Botswana -- and is marrying a white boy from Oklahoma that's so down everyone assumes he's at least Puerto Rican. They met at church and it's been history ever since.

It's about time that I took a vacation. Every now and again I get that itching to flee the US as fast as possible. I've been to quite a few places -- Brazil, Belize, and S. Africa, among others. My first really major trip, outside of family trips back home to Nigeria, was the summer after my sophomore year of college that I spent in Accra.

I was there for 9 weeks, studying plant medicine at the University of Ghana-Legon. At the time, I was a fearless and naive 19. Not speaking a word of Twi, I rode a tro-tro every Tuesday and Thursday to class with folks from the Ghana Dance Ensemble and National Theatre; took a bus ride down to Cape Coast with some friends for Panafest; and a bus tour to Kumasi just to see the sights.

I have some video of myself dancing at a rehearsal, whirling round and round, my hair cut in a short afro. Man. I had so much gumption! Actually got into a taxi once and told the driver that I didn't know where I was going, but could he please help me find it. LOL.

I think it's only when we travel that we come to understand ourselves and our place in the world better. Here's to more travel and life lessons.