Crossroads with Renée Cheréz: What is in a Crossroads?

As the name of this column suggests, crossroads seem to be a theme of my existence. When I see them projected from my mind’s image channel, they don’t appear as this seemingly uncomplicated intersection with two or even four different paths to journey down. They appear instead as a labyrinth. Each path seductive, laced with possibility, perceived good and bad — all filled with their own element of unpredictability. In case I’ve not let the secret out of the bag in previous stories, I want to be clear: I like knowing things. I like knowing what to expect and what to prepare for. I’m good at knowing things — trauma response, most definitely — and I need what I need.

Currently, I’m standing in the midst of another set of crossroads. I’m back home after two months away on a journey through Limón Province, Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Costa Rica, with fresh eyes. Ancestor Garvey spent more than two years in Limón, and despite my mind setting off DEFCON levels of fear and insecurity about readiness, I heeded the guidance of my ancestral squad and explored a place that is soaked in their energy. I can’t say the experience didn’t go as planned because I didn’t plan much of anything. I thought I would see more things and experience more towns, but every time I ventured away from Playa Negra, a miles-long beach covered in magical, black-ash glittery sand, I longed for it and returned.

In many ways, I don’t know what happened there or what the takeaways were. Most days when I bicycled into town, I passed Casa de la Cultura Marcus Garvey, a community space in the center of the coastal town that I couldn’t bring myself to enter until two weeks before I left. I’d stand in awe outside the Caribbean-colored, green-and-yellow wooden house and read and re-read large signs in Spanish and English about Uncle Garvey’s impact on the Afro-Caribbean settlers of the region. I’d smile, cry, giggle and notice the times it felt too big to enter the premises. All until one evening, that is. As the space vibrated with a dance class, I traced the wrap-around veranda step by step, reading locals’ anecdotes on vivid canvases of what life was like in Puerto Viejo when it was solely a fishing town. Children played among towering palm trees and the Caribbean ocean. They each belonged to the community and the land while bicycles were a beloved method of movement because of the intimacy they offered. I realized this is also why I adore having a bicicleta in my world. It feels like a symbol — a reminder of being alive and connected to all things.

Boarding that plane to Costa Rica was monumental. The tornado of emotions that swirled was reminiscent of five years prior when I began my indefinite travel journey in Thailand. I bawled as my mom and I stepped through JFK’s sliding door, through security, to board the plane, which, moments later, climbed into the sky. This time, I entered my home airport in México alone but still, shaking, scared and questioning why I was doing this, unable to predict what was next. My ego might make me believe that because I’ve been doing this travel and movement thing for a while now that uncertainty shouldn’t be part of the equation. But 2017, though it feels like yesterday, wasn’t.

I’m different, and so is the world. All in all, I needed that physical shake-up of my comfort zone. Journeying through and with Puerto Viejo allowed for new pathways in this crossroad labyrinth to appear for my purpose work, allowing me to move on from place and love. The basic question “what do you want?” has revealed itself as this year’s gentle ask, and perhaps those words hang above these crossroads as a reminder that wrong or right, good or bad, negative or positive choices don’t exist. Binary thinking disconnects from the body — the heart — and removes any space for possibility and magic to exist. Admittedly, these crossroads feel different. I feel a rootedness that whichever one of these paths I go down, I will end up where I need to be. Crossroads are funny: Our view of them is from the ground, but if we peeked at them from above, what would we see as the end of the road? My guess is that it would be the start of yet another journey, leading to another set of crossroads. C’est la vie!

Renée Cheréz, also known as the Travel Liberationist is a writer who expresses her thoughts, experiences, and stories at the intersections of joy, travel, Black liberation, and the pursuit of more life. She is a mermaid, child, storyteller, adventurer, and lover of mountain gorillas. Her work has been published in The Huffington Post, Geez Magazine, Sister Letter, Lonely Planet, and more. You can find her come up to the surface from her living on IG: reneecherez.

This story was originally published November 18, 2022 at 9:00 AM.