On Traveling To Beautiful Places

Every day I'm still looking for God
and I'm still finding him everywhere,
in the dust, in the flowerbeds.
Certainly in the oceans,
in the islands that lay in the distance
continents of ice, continents of sand
each with its own set of creatures
and God, by whatever name.
How perfect to be aboard a ship with
maybe a hundred years still in my pocket.
But it's late, for all of us,
and in truth the only ship there is
is the ship we are all on
burning the world as we go.

- Mary Oliver

Why You Travel

You don't want the children to know how afraid
you are. You want to be sure their hold on life

is steady, sturdy. Were mothers and fathers
always this anxious, holding the ringing

receiver close to the ear: Why don't they answer
where could they be? There's a conspiracy

to protect the young, so they'll be fearless,
it's why you travel - it's a way of trying

to let go, of lying. You don't sit
in a stiff chair and worry, you keep moving.

Postcards from the Alamo, the Alhambra.
Photos of you in Barcelona, Gaudi's park

swirling behind you. There you are in the Garden
of the Master of the Fishing Nets, one red tree

against a white wall, koi swarming
over each other in the thick demoralized pond.

You, fainting at the Buddhist caves.
Climbing with thousands on the Great Wall,

wearing a straw hat, a backpack, a year
before the students at Tiananmen Square.

Having the time of your life, blistered and smiling.
The acid of your fear could eat the world.

- Gail Mazur

About a year and a half ago, I submitted a travel piece in a writing class I was taking. It was about how I fell into travel as a lifestyle, as a career, and how passionate I am about movement and seeing the world. I was proud of it.

The feedback was decent, but the instructor had one innocent question: why? Why do you travel? Why, for you, is movement so meaningful? What does it represent, and what does it heal, or save?

The essay was hollow, she said. Nice enough, but ringing empty. What was the undercurrent beneath my essay? (Which is actually asking, what is the undercurrent of my whole life?)

I was blindsided by this question. The truth is that I have no idea. What a weird concept, to realize you have no idea why you are the way you are.

Something in here rings true, though.

"It's a way of trying to let go, of lying. You don't sit in a stiff chair and worry, you keep moving."

Traveling is like dousing yourself in electricity. If you're doing it right, everything should feel different. The air, the sounds, the sights, the colors. You should be a little bit afraid. You climb off the airplane in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night and all of your senses are heightened, brightened. You are instantly more alive than you would have been at home, setting the coffee for the morning and straightening the kitchen. And you are thankful for this, and aware of your moments. Aware, for once, of the precise sound your footsteps are making on new earth.

What's so wrong with staying still? I still don't know. And I'm not sure that it matters. We all find our meaning however we can. Or we should.

How Do We Fall In Love?

In the children's book "Big Questions From Little People," author Jeanette Winterson responds to the question, "How do we fall in love?":

"You don't fall in love like you fall in a hole. You fall like falling through space. It's like you jump off your own private planet to visit someone else's planet. And when you get there it all looks different: the flowers, the animals, the colors people wear. It's a big surprise, falling in love, because you thought you had everything just right on your own planet, and that was true, in a way, but then somebody signaled to you across space and the only way you could visit was to take a giant jump. Away you go, falling into someone else's orbit and after awhile you might decide to pull your two planets together and call it home. And you can bring your dog. Or your cat. Your goldfish, hamster, collection of stones, all your old socks. (The ones you lost, including the holes, are on the new planet you found.)

And you can bring your friends to visit. And read your favorite stories to each other. And the falling was really the big jump that you had to make to be with someone that you don't want to be without. That's it.

P.S. You have to be brave."

This phrasing is so sweet. (I hate the word sweet.) But sweet this is, in a nice way. Not too syrupy-cute. Just simple. I love the idea of two people falling in love and reading each other their favorite stories. And bringing your dog. And the image of two planets hitching together.

Oh, internet. Sometimes you bring such nice little happies to me.