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This is the part of the story when I die. The thought is an endless refrain. In pursuit of New Zealand's natural hot springs, I am sitting in my orange campervan, one of two cars parked in a gravel lot surrounded by dense forest. I am young, brown, female and alone. Water rushes in the distance. I listen as I ride the waves of my body leaving my skin and settling down again. No one tells you what solo travel feels like in your bones but this might be it. My sandals squelch down the muddy path as the stream grows wider and pools link together. Lush green ferns and plumes of steam are interrupted by remnants of unsavory activity- abandoned beer bottles, soda cans, cigarette butts. The juxtaposition between beauty and danger brings that voice back into my head. This time it sounds like my mother telling me “I told you so”, telling me to wait until I’m married to travel. It sounds like an ex boyfriend, who resented that I wanted to have adventures of my own. It sounds like the voice telling many women, especially brown and black women, that they can’t be alone and safe when traveling in a violent world. I have spent most days of this trip alone with my thoughts, wondering if I made the right decision to come and if these spaces are meant for me. But, I hunger for the world to hold me. I hunger to marvel at fragility and my humanity. I hunger for something I can’t name. A break in the path reveals a waterfall emptying into a pool 5 feet down. The basin is lined with shaggy moss and glossy slabs of rock. A thick mist coats my face and embraces me. There are two girls in the pool already, brown faces like mine. I breathe a sigh of relief and shed my layers. Kaylani and Tia are from a town near Rotorua; they share Maori heritage and the hot pools seem to be an extension of their backyard; K works later that day, so they’re enjoying some time together while T visits from Australia. I’m drawn to how comfortable they are in a place so out of my comfort zone. Words leave me like a volcano erupting; I tell them everything: my fear of not knowing what is coming next, how strange it is to be a brown face in a white world. We find we have shared experiences, even though we are from uncommon worlds. Tia eases the mood with a selfie stick. We snap photos, gossip about boys, and cross the threshold from strangers to friends. Lowering myself into bodies of water has a way of making me feel especially vulnerable. When you don’t learn how to swim until you’re in high school, when you don’t grow up hiking, when you spend your entire backcountry trip not seeing another face that looks like yours, it’s hard to feel like you belong in the corners of the world’s unknown. - I didn’t know that I’d be waking up in Kaylani’s home less than 24 hours later, a small cottage with a woodburning stove in the kitchen. That morning, upon her Grandma Sally’s reminder, we walked across the street to join an annual gathering of Haka performers from around the country. A tent is erected in the middle of a field, next to the cultural building. Amongst hundreds of brown faces, I am mesmerized by centuries of song, dance, love & loss, translated through bold, beautiful gestures. Thousands of miles from home, I am sated by belonging. K’s sister had passed away recently, as I later learned. When her grandmother calls me moko, the Maori world for a grandchild, it’s a bittersweet shock. When I say goodbye to the girls a few days later, I ache a little, knowing the chances of us meeting again are slim. Finding vulnerability is a two way street at the core of experiences that we hunger for in travel. In New Zealand, I found pockets of tenderness, spaces to breathe and belong. There is love in the world, therefore I can leap, unafraid, and find home in the unknown.