Leaving Home
A story about culture, belonging, and becoming
Audio version available above.
Sometimes, leaving home isn’t about escape. It’s about seeing your own culture clearly for the first time.
Welcome to Somewhere Over the Tejo (SOTT).
If you followed my earlier missives, newsletters, or writings, this is where that story begins to evolve. What started as a search for freedom and perspective has grown into a space for deeper reflection on culture, belonging, and the meaning we make when we live between worlds.
This first piece, “Leaving Home,” marks the moment the journey shifted from travel to transformation. It carries the roots of what SOTT is now becoming. Whether you are returning or joining for the first time, I am glad you are here.
🌊 Somewhere over the Tejo
When I moved from San Francisco, California, to Seixal, a sleepy village outside Lisbon, I had no idea what the future had in store. I knew I wanted adventure, peace, and a chance at a different kind of life —one where struggle wasn’t part of my everyday existence. After toiling away endlessly, still unable to afford a home, and finding it a challenge to recognize the country that had once felt like home, I began to wonder if there was a better way. I needed a reset. Already a consummate traveler, when I finally pushed that reset button, I knew my yellow brick road would lead me abroad.
What I didn’t know was that my journey would reveal far more than a love for seafood, wine, and pastel de nata. Gradually, I understood that my focus on the surface, on what was missing—affordable healthcare, housing, and opportunity—hid a more profound truth. Beneath my unease with what felt like a steady erosion of the values that once drew my family to the U.S. from Jamaica—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—was a profound values mismatch. Where I valued inclusion, openness, and generosity, some of the institutions and people I surrounded myself with viewed life primarily as a business transaction.
In Jamaica, when you are in need and ask for help, someone who truly cares about you will say, Close your eyes and come. In my culture, when you need help, people don’t look away. Thoughts and prayers only go so far.
From Travel to Transformation
When I first started the original ‘Somewhere Over the Tejo’ blog, I wanted to share the freedom, hope, and widening perspective that travel can offer, even for those without a trust fund.
What I didn’t yet realize was that travel was the doorway.
Living abroad became my pathway to transformation.
It taught me to listen differently, to see myself more clearly, and to honor the places where migration shapes us into something new.
Expansion, not escape, is the journey SOTT returns to now.
I hope you’ll join me in my new home. Somewhere over the Tejo*, the water is just fine.
*Author’s Note: The Tejo, known as the Tagus (pronounced TAY-gus) in English, is the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula, running from the mountains of Spain to the Atlantic Ocean. The river also separates Lisbon from the South Bank. From Seixal, the river speaks to those who are open to listening.
If this piece speaks to your own in-between, feel free to share it with someone who might need it too.