travel
there is something that goes unsaid about the seduction of travelling. Yes you are constantly stimulated and everything is new and exciting and it is liberation and…yes, thats what I want to think about. Why is travelling liberation? Is it because things are unpredictable and uncommon, things happen that are unusual and certainly unexpected? Perhaps. But I think its more. I think its because people sever their responsibilities when they travel. Particularly when you’re alone, your journey gives you the chance to revert to the carefree days of childhood where your responsibilities to life and particularly, to other people, vanish entirely. Your friends and family sit at home doing what they do, expecting little more from you than to check in and give updates and perhaps a few photos logging your journey.
Indeed, your suitcase and the open road make you entirely free. No bills to pay (except maybe for the hostel), no elderly relatives to visit, no friends to apologize to for not being around, not parents to reconcile with, when nothing is permanent, nothing is an encumbrance.
Is travelling a sign of immaturity then? A way to say: I can’t deal with you right now, i’ve got to go travel. Or instead, is it a way of taking a break from reality because as individuals, it is all too much to bear. And are those things really different?
So as I ask these questions, I look at the people in my life. So many of them are on their own adventures, keeping track of “life back home” without a moments hesitation because its pretty easy to ask the questions and give the answers when you’re time is running low in the cyber cafe. But if you look closer, all of these people are taking on their own kind of struggle through their travels. In fact none of them have escaped life entirely, they’ve just started buying a new brand of it. For some friends, they’ve taken their emotional troubles and poured them into the stale air of an airport, into the majestic mountains that will remain an open ear for all of eternity. But they know that the world is only so large, and for as far as you run, finding solace in another time and place is only temporary.
For others they’ve traded in their name-brand lives for a few weeks or months of enlightenment at what this world really is about. In leaving their own responisibilities behind, they’ve taken on a new one: forgoing ignorance and staring the worlds screw ups in the face.
Travelling is not always a bliss of isolation and freedom from real connections and complications that make up “life”. But often times thats the purpose of a plane ticket, and we learn that whenever we go places, the truth is, we always end up back where we started (the earth is round and T.S. eliot is right).
For those people who remain home, or at least grounded in one place, sitting still is an opportunity to look at those responsibilities and make good with them. It might be harder, might be frustrating and boring at times, but we can go visit our elderly relatives. We will never regret a lost friendship, and our bills will all get paid (or at least, we’ll have them to pay). Bearing these responsibilites at a time like this means learning to live with them, because we can’t travel forever and this is a growing experience.
I’m glad I didn’t go away this summer. I am thankful for all that the suburbs has brought me. Who’d have thought it?
