A Far Cry from Yesterday: Finding Tomorrow in Distant Lands

Sometimes, there’s no direction. Sometimes, enough is enough. But how to get back on track? How to reinvent ourselves?

Driving through a snowstorm and bribing border officers in Tajikistan isn’t the first thing that comes to mind as a way to deal with grief and reconsider one’s place in the world. Neither is taking a Siberian train in November or crossing North America on a Greyhound bus. Yet, that’s exactly what Manon did when she set out to reignite her light within—or at least silence the darkness—in distant lands.

Manon Rinsma lost her mother when she was only twelve years old. For ten years, she pushed it away, filling the void with anger, love, accomplishments, and everything in between. One day, everything was ending: home as she knew it was gone, her master’s degree complete, her apartment lease up, and her cheating boyfriend out the door—she had nothing to lose.

Ready to confront all the memories that haunted her in her sleep, unanswered grief weighing on her soul and unresolved anger festering within, she put on her red Nikes, strapped on her backpack, and left with no other direction in mind than to find tomorrow—a new dawn, a glimmer or glow.

Her path, shaped by her intuition and the people she met along the way, spanned four continents, pushing her to her limits.

All to find the way, away from yesterday.