Travel - Why?

Travel – Why?

Through travel, I first became aware of the outside world.  It was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming part of it……Eudora Welty, in Sarah Ban Brethnach, Simple Abundance, a Daybook of Comfort and Joy, 9/30.

            Travel has always been at the top of my list of desires.  It began as a child watching my father leave home every Monday morning and return Friday evening.  His work with The Davey Tree Expert Company as a salesman and then later a supervisor and ultimately a vice president took him all over the Southeastern United States.. 

            While Daddy was traveling, I spent most evenings after supper sitting in a porch swing watching car lights coming over the hill wondering who and where.  It intrigued me to speculate on their circumstances and destinations.  Where did they come from?  Where were they going?  What would they find?  What would they do when they got there?

            Even though I was a happy child, I yearned to travel—and still do.  Away from home, I lose my identity. I am free to be whoever I wish to be.  There are no judges with preconceived notions.  Especially when I travel alone—as I do often. 

            Traveling alone liberates me to be a new me—and so I become.  I begin.  I grow.  All that was true about me before I left home is of no consequence.  I am free of those encumbrances, free to be, to go, to do without restraint.  Travel is my route to shedding the unwanted and overcoming self-created obstacles and responsibilities. 

            There is a new stage, a new opening night, new players.  Everything is a new choice.  In a not-so-small way, travel allows for, even encourages rebirth.  A chance to fulfill dreams and overcome fears.

            All this is not speculation.  It is fact.  It happened to me when I traveled alone to Ireland four years ago and lived in Kinsale for two months.  It happened again last year with a month in Santa Fe.  A month is just barely enough.  Six months would be far more productive.

            Travel partners can be a plus or a minus.  My brother Jim and friend Kathy were wonderful companions in Ireland and a definite plus, as was my friend Faye in Santa Fe.  The companion must be as much an independent thinker as I and willing and able to operate alone.  In both cases, we did that without a single hitch. 

            The challenge is to bring back an improved self and keep her alive.  Some of my efforts to do that are rewarded.  The blogs I wrote and printed when I returned, photos, e-mails with newfound friends now in touch on Facebook.  Recalling the thoughts and especially the feeling of liberation that surfaced while I was there.  Inevitably, I am changed.  My world has expanded.  My life enriched.