It is absolutely perfect today. It makes it so easy to pretend like 4 wheelers are motorinos. It is impossible not to close my eyes and be back on that coast, with that town on the cliff, or the one with the buildings of uniform white, or the one with the broken mountain cliff and stretch of white sand. It is difficult not to dream to be back on the road again, planning another journey, jetting off to another spot to discover, to explore. Sadly, it all falls apart with the sliding of the screen door and a call to the vaccuuming duty I`ve been lazily pushing aside all day long.
But as long as the sun shines, my mind will stay stuck in another place...my intention of an impromptu getaway still at the heart of my summer plans.
When you travel, what do you travel for? Do you wish to see for yourself the tales you are told in your history books? Do you want to brush the fur of a lynx, feel the mist of a rainforest, get tangled in a vine? Are you restless or passive? Do you want to globe trot from Sardegna to Siam, from Tanzania to Thailand, from Dublin to Dubrovnik? Or do you settle in one locale?...live the culture, unearth its mysteries in their entirety, exploring just as much of yourself as you explore the land...
My two European getaways taught me much about myself, my travel style. My first trip to Italy was a trip in constant transit. It made me realize how much I love my friends and family. It made me realize that I am a person who loves being around the people they love. It made me see that loneliness is felt in a room of empty faces. That sometimes it can take being surronded by a throng of people to realize how isolated one can get.
My second trip made me realize that I really am as lazy as I claim, that constant change (or change that happens at anything more than snail pace) unnerves me, makes me anxious. It made me realize that I cannot function on a schedule not created by myself, that I can run 6 miles a day but I do not move quickly naturally, and that I am truly happy when my skin is warmed by the sun, kissed golden by its rays in a backdrop where the soundtrack is of lapsing waves, departing and arrive boats...where nature is alive and we thrive off it, depend on it, worship its simple granduer. It made me realize that I can fall in love with a land, that it can leave a mark on my heart and take a piece of my soul. That when I find my right fit then I don`t need to try it on for size, but my mind is already made and I find myself standing at the checkout, credit card in hand, already embracing the newest piece of the puzzle of me as if it has been there all along.
What else do we ever look for, really, besides a niche? A little corner where we fit in so perfectly, relax so easily, so comfortably. Sometimes our niches are lavish, sometimes they are simple. Sometimes they are found close by and crowded with familiarity; sometimes they are far off and unhampered. Sometimes they are found in a person, sometimes in a place. Sometimes they are our perfect job, our ideal home, our newborn child, our grown teenager, our mother, our father, our siblings. Sometimes our niche is a spot on our couch, a chair on our veranda, a wooden deck at our cottage. Regardless of their variety, they all posses the same power--they are always where we find ourselves most truly, always where we find we can explore ourselves most thoroughly, with no restrictions.
It is with this thought that I urge you to book that trip. To realize that when your mind is constantly in flight, than why should you ground your feet? To learn that sometimes it takes you going to the other side of the world to find your spot at home.
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