“Cinderella dermatitis,” the doctor told me a few weeks ago, pointing to the gray patches around my neck. Those patches had appeared months earlier, during a trip across three Asian countries in a single week, on my own initiative. At that time, my mind felt productive and efficient through the sequence of food courts, VPNs, QR codes, check-ins, Uber rides, layovers, work, where the meter is, and the green mansion—am I going to make it—is there wifi?—party—Uber—bed. But apparently, my body didn’t hurry as much and began to complain in the form of patches, fatigue, and other ailments I hadn’t paid attention to.
I reached the Tangalle area in Sri Lanka by bus, listening to the speech of a Buddhist speaker on the TV while I scratched the patches. Once in the cabin’s bed, prompted by a sudden impulse, turned off the phone. Suddenly, only the sound of the sea remained. My body began to ask me to walk through the jungle at night and end up on the beach until I closed my eyes, to savor a breeze-and-stars intimacy.
I spent a few days without screens, sleeping with the dogs on the sand, applying some Ayurvedic salve, and not looking for turtles or other beaches. That is how I began to become interested in ecosomatics (“eco” refers to environmental ethics, while the term “somatic” derives from the Greek word “soma”, which refers to the living body, in its entirety and as a perceptive entity). It is the relationship between body and surroundings through shared patterns and rhythms that offers a new vision to break down barriers. Also, of course, through travel.
