**Obstacles as Compasses**
Date: 2025-09-14 09:04:39
Barcelona’s dawn is quiet today—a rare hush between the clatter of garbage trucks and the first shouts from the mercado down the street. I’m curled on my balcony with a café con leche, tracing the steam as it curls into the morning air. The suitcase is finally unpacked (victory), but the Lisbon tram tickets now live pressed between the pages of my journal, next to a dried sprig of lavender from Provence and a faded metro stub from Buenos Aires. Tiny relics of resistance.
Last night, I dreamt in fragments—a montage of missed trains, jammed camera shutters, and border officers scrutinizing my passport with suspicion. I woke disoriented, heart racing, until the familiar hum of my neighborhood grounded me. It’s funny how obstacles follow us even into sleep.
But here’s what I’m learning: the things that force us to stop—rejections, delays, lost luggage, no’s—aren’t just roadblocks. They’re compasses.
Take the editor who killed my Morocco piece. At the time, it felt like a gut punch. But that no led me to Lisbon, which led me back here, which led to yesterday’s call about the new series—with Barcelona as the anchor. And the camera that malfunctioned in Marrakech? It forced me to shoot on film for the first time in years, relearning patience, the art of waiting for the right light instead of chasing it.
Even yesterday’s small chaos—a spilled coffee on my notes, a missed deadline—became a pivot. Instead of spiraling, I closed my laptop and walked to Barceloneta. The Mediterranean was restless, waves slapping the boardwalk, and for the first time in weeks, I didn’t take a single photo. Just stood there, salt on my lips, and let the frustration dissolve like foam on sand.
Obstacles don’t just shape the journey; they reveal its contours. They show us where we’re rigid, where we bend, where we’ve been clinging to a path that no longer fits.
Today, I’ll meet with the editor to outline the series. I’ll pitch including the obstacles themselves—the missed trains, the bureaucratic tangles, the moments of doubt—as part of the narrative. Because the story isn’t just in the postcard-perfect shots. It’s in the grit between them.
And when the next no comes (because it will), I’ll try to remember: detours aren’t failures. They’re the terrain.
—Sofia