Why We Travel
From the pre-blog journal archives:
Its a funny thing about me and travel. I find often, that when I get taken with a new place, I covet it, in a wish for permanency. I want it the same way I want a beautiful new necklace, new hardwood floors or an intriguing piece of art. Yet that everyday repetitiveness of real life is the reason I start dreaming of new lives and new lands in the first place. And unfortunately, as hard as we try, you can’t take those places home with you. Marionettes, wooden spoons, brightly colored dishes and all that white and blue look a lot crappier here in the US, without those beer infused rose colored glasses perched atop my head. So, notebook, please ignore those funny bulges in my backpack. They are not marionettes. I swear.
So, anyhow, I often come home with a maddening habit of both trolling real estate ads in the country I just visited and fell for, dreaming of a new life and wanting to order language tapes to start my journey on the right foot,
– and –
at the same instant looking at the map, sometimes even the one that comes on the inflight magazine on my return flight, imagining the Lonely Planet guides and destinations I will find myself drawn to next. I don’t actually stick to my list… it could be anywhere!
Those two ideas alone, at odds, and worse, both of those daydreams completely ignore the practical reality that my life that affords me this travel is here, the friends and loved ones, whom will undoubtedly not want to give up their own dreams to follow me on mine, are here as well, and the fact that real life, no matter where you plant your feet, will eventually track you down.
I think.
But then I read the adventures of those who find BETTER happiness for themselves as individuals, couples or families in their new mundane ‘real life’ because being mundane in a better place is just, well better! Also just what the doctor ordered for the above affliction, and the variations most permatravelers suffer from. Will being in the right place quench the travel thirst for a little while?
I also ponder, with so many places I want to go, and with so many others that I would want to go to if I had the correct notion of them, how does one choose such a move? Its not like I haven’t been completely taken with a place before, to find that a year later I am completely taken with an entirely different place. And lets not forget those places I thought I would absolutely love (Florence, Italy and Prague, CZ) which I couldn’t get out of fast enough.
I appease myself with overtures of practicality and a lifetime of possibility for traveling. I reason that leaving your life behind, and more importantly the people you love, isn’t always what its cracked up to be, and that the fantasy often forgets to mention the days and months of lonely time involved in such singular self-oriented moves. I tell myself that what I want in these cities and countrysides cannot be purchased. It is ephemeral, as it is likely that some of the qualities I found so charming on my visit would either change over time, become less ideal as I aged, or more practically, are wonderful unless you live there every day. As to this last example, I think it’s total crap, but I say it to myself anyway, while I click through real estate ads on the internet. And put more countries on my wishlist.
I can tell you I am always happy to ‘be home’. The easiness with which you can ignore your surroundings, can get food without sitting down, and the fact that all paper money is the same size (a more annoying problem than you might at first imagine) is like a big welcome hug. But I can also tell you that I’m not really that excited to be in my surroundings even the day I land. This tells me certainly that I can make a home elsewhere from a physical sense, albeit with a whole lot of effort, lets face it, and keep the status quo. But every sort of self help guide and most practiced religions would tell you that your surroundings have little to do with happiness. Inner happiness and loved ones are the answer here. I am stumped, as I believe this too. But, to be reasonable, I think those pontificators need to meet the average self absorbed New Yorker trying to get to work during rush hour, before asserting that external things are not the cause of my unhappiness.
So, despite the fact that I just got off the plane, I am dreaming of my next trip and the one after that even as I write this. Maybe one day, all of the above questions will be easy to either answer or ignore as I will find that one place, physical or otherwise, where there is no doubt in my mind that I’d be foolish to be elsewhere.
Not that I am necessarily looking mind you…
Tags: Travel, USA, Tag Index
jessicab