I am always travelling these days and what I’ve discovered is that many things, although seemingly different and far away, are essentially the same.  A plane is a plane is a plane.  An apartment, whether in London or New York, furnished or empty, is where you lay your head.  Friends on both sides of the Atlantic meet in the same restaurants, stand in the same streets at Halloween with only slightly older kids, love and complain on the same levels about more or less the same issues over many years.

So why travel?  And why stay still?  Because it is our perception of ourselves and our surroundings that changes.  And that is both deeply unreliable as a way of measuring time and progress and also oddly the only thing we have.  That and our conversations with the place itself and with the people we love in it.

To constantly travel and never arrive is as challenging as standing in one space forever.  To ‘settle for something’ is seen as an admission of failure but it is, well, unsettling – to not know where you stand in the world.

I see great bravery in your face looking at the camera, and so am inspired to be brave myself, and keep travelling.

With love, Em xxx

Emma Lindley is a friend and filmmaker. She is currently directing the TV series ‘In Search of Food’ for Ovation TV in the USA and teaches at the Met Film School.