| I’m back…from driving 8538 kilometres through 8 states in 30 days, and lying under bad botanical prints in teeming motel rooms. This, a peregrination I had planned and agreed to pay for.What counted, I thought, was staying power, and this I meant to have in spades.I also thought I needed to bring my level of tolerance up a notch – all the while contemplating the contents of hotel mini-bars, relishing a dry martini, and dreaming of first class accommodations. |
| For most of history people simply just viewed places and art, stayed awhile to experience and enjoy them, maybe contemplated alone or conversed with their travel mate, but with the rise of smart phones, people just take pictures. Tourists now spend their time poking a two-dimensional version on their touch screens, and in David’s case, mostly at his genitals.There is such a thing as going to a place and not actually being there.Our culture is obsessed with celebrity and panicked for instant approval, the counterfeit crowns that come in the form of reposts, retweets and likes. People takes pictures of anything they see without even seeing them. In Yellowstone National Park, I watched as a twenty-something girl recorded Old Faithful faithfully erupt with a Go-Pro in her left hand while texting on her phone with her right hand, not once looking up. (You are probably wondering why I was watching the girl instead of watching Old Faithful erupt.) Because there are certain necessary tasks that coarsen the quality of my everyday life. And the world starts to divide. |
| I watched as tourists jumped out of their vehicles and videoed the scene in front of them, pressed pause, and immediately turned their back to go – where? – the next spot to record? I watched as children used mobile screens in restaurants, streets and on beaches in lieu of conversation or interaction, not watching or listening to the pleasures around them, nor playing with sand buckets. This all made me feel spiritually itchy.But to be frank, I can be something of a whiner. Before we think about travelling anywhere, even it is only to the nearest cantina, we need to question its usefulness if we do not know how to look or notice what we have already seen. We need to think not only about where we go, but why and how.Because,” as Airbnb CEO, Brian Chesky, affirms: “travel has never really been about where you go. It’s about the person you’ve become when you return.” |
| When we travel, we are often prone to forget one crucial thing: that we have to take ourselves with us. That is, we won’t just be in Portland, the south of France, Fiji, or the Easter Islands – we’ll be there with ourselves, imprisoned in our own bodies and minds, most of us with the emotional quotient somewhere between a cactus and a wombat. |
| For example, a single sulk can destroy the beneficial effects of the experience of a National Park. Or ruin the entire week in Paris over an argument why one can’t visit four art galleries in one day. Or the frustration over who had forgotten the key in the room. For no matter how beautiful the hotel room and setting is, we might as well have stayed home and ranted. How quickly the advantages of civilization are wiped out by a tantrum. |
| By the way, before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes. We become present to ourselves in the absence of something we need. But at home, we may not actually be who we truly are. Travelling may soon reveal that we actually aren’t really as patient, tolerant or open-minded as we thought we were, and that we need certain accruements before we are comfortable or even happy. Travelling can be a call to marry the outer journey with what we require for our inner journey. |
| Alice Walker says that sometimes you have to go to places that really scare you, to see clearer, to think about who you really are and what you really believe. For example, nature has the power in unobtrusive ways, to act as inspirations to certain virtues that need to be honed, virtues that benefit our souls. This kind of attention – with your hands, heart and feet might just be a thing worthy of your time. A desert to feel small and realize that the incidents of our lives are not terribly important in the big scheme of things. |
| (What this picture doesn’t show you is that it was approximately the same temperature as it would be if we’d been sitting on the sun. Except it was hotter.) Redwoods can inspire dignity. |
| A lake for calmness. |
| Oceans for perspective and expansiveness. |
| Mountains for persistence. |
| Rocks for anchoring and grounding. |
| To relive beauty in a field of dalias. |
| Pine trees for resiliency. |
| Although there is courage in travelling the world, it is also daring to sit at home with one’s thoughts for a while, risking encounters with certain anxiety-inducing or melancholy, and asking highly necessary questions like – do worker bees have sex? Maybe at the end of the day, the anticipation of travel may have turned out to be the best part. |
Loved it!!
A lovely piece of writing Karyn. Sounds like you had quite the trip. I always appreciate your perspectives.
Thanks, Laura
Laura Wershler
Love your philosophy, wisdom sense of humour Karyn!
The pictures are outstanding as always!
All the best,
Teeya
Just got back from Barcelona, so your thoughts on travel were so fantastic as usual.
I love your brain and the way it thinks.
And I am just sitting here in my lovely house, just thanking you again for the ultra wonderful job you did on our home
Truly genius if you ask me
Right up there with Gaudi!
Good to have you back Karyn! Loved this read. I SO agree… Went to France this spring & spent an AMAZING couple of hours sitting in the Black Madonna Chapel at Rocamadour in the Dordogne Valley ( highly recommended!)
While there, marvelling at the experience/ energy etc, literally a thousand people shuffled past with phone camera’s clicking and carried on….it was like there was a ‘veil’ between them and the 54 or 5 of us who actually sat down to contemplate the chapel and experience the energy. It was transformative… for the first time in my life I lit a candle in a religious house. And all those people just shuffled past… it was astounding.
And I’ve shared your experiences of museums and heritage sites ‘before the big crowds’.This more relaxed experience is becoming a lost art.
Thanks for the pictures!!!
Carollyne Coulson