There’s something of the sea in the clothes that I own. Salt rimmed brims to all my hats. Sand in various pockets of my shorts.

Even if it’s not the sea, the gravel from the sports fields hitchhikes in my school shoes.

All of it tells of story of the life I’ve lived on this island. One that I’m cognizant of as the days wind down.

I’ve less than thirty days of work before I’m off the island.

I wonder what it is that I’ll find once I leave these shores. What leftover pebbles the land has given me as I venture back five thousand miles.

From the beginning I had asked myself what it may be that I would learn.

What stories I’d hold in my heart as the buzz of cicadas and classroom chatter dulled as I spirited over the horizon.

Not many of my stories I’ll reference will include the moments where I wrote stories in my kitchen as I idly flicked the plastic bear that hung as the ballast for my light switch.

Nor will the forays out onto my balcony to stare at the visible half of the bay be what I regal my friends with.

But it’s those moments that I knew myself to be present here. Where I felt as far as possible from home— where the possibilities of anything stretched before me.

And in turn, where I saw that the long carved path of honest desire has kept me steadily, if slowly, headed in an exciting and unpredictable direction.

I will carry a portion of Tsushima with me, always. Even if it isn’t the sand from the beach or pebbles from the field. I’ll carry the classroom laughs, staff outings, bug freak outs, general confusion, sublime dining, and transcendent beauty.