The End my Friend the End
A number of people have commented to me that returning home after a long absence must feel weird. I see their point but in these last days of the trip I feel an almost magnetic pull drawing me back. One of the reasons I took this trip was to sort out my feelings of home. I cannot say that I have succeeded completely in that respect, but I definitely have new insights.
What defines "home"?
People? Place? Routine?
People- The world is filled with amazing, loving people. Good people are a dime a dozen and that is a wonderful thing. Any of you who orient towards the xenophobic should really get out there and travel. Love and cooperation is the common denominator everywhere and if we all realized that there would be a lot less conflict. None the less I miss my family and friends. I confess I did not miss anyone much at first: the excitement of our adventure eclipsed a lot. But as, the adventure morphed into the ordinary, I started feeling pangs of absence. Long ties create deep channels. To lose connection with people you are close to is giving up a part of yourself. My loss was mitigated greatly because I was with Beth, my best friend and always companion.
Place- Everywhere I go I find reassurance from the familiar. I am now in Roanoke Virginia and I might as well be in Albany: the streets are snowed in and the 1920 bungalows are familiar. So are the rolling hills surrounding the city and the vast expanse of woods and farms which stretch on for miles. The same holds true for the most exotic locales we have visited. The beaches of Portugual evoke Cape Cod in Summer and the Sri Lankan jungle feels familiar and much safer than I would have ever anticipated. That said I long for my 3 acres of lawn and woods which have imprinted on me for so many years. It's not because it's special, it's because I have absorbed it.
Routine- This may be the way our trip has affected me most. Traveling as we did forces you to be adaptable and that in turn makes one philosophical. After a while you realize that, except in rare cases, all stress is illusionary. You can take almost any circumstance and decide it is a terrible plight or that it's not so bad and maybe even a good thing when placed in proper perspective. Waiting in lines, stuck in traffic, lost in a strange city are all times which afford you great opportunity to look around and feel the pulse of life. Often the situation that evokes a stress response is also the one that, if taken lightly, grants entrance into being fully present, fully engaged and truly living. It is those accentuated moments in life that stand out in our memories and carry the most weight in our definition of self. The ironic thing is that you do not need to travel to experience the benefits of pushing your limits. It's just much harder to do at home because we all trend towards the comfortable. My lesson from this trip is to try to avoid complacency. To put that philosophy to practice we are going to Pennsylvania tommorow to buy two farm dogs ( puppies) from an Amish family. It should make the five hour trip back interesting and help us from becoming bored when we are finally home. Thanks for reading. ~p
What defines "home"?
People? Place? Routine?
People- The world is filled with amazing, loving people. Good people are a dime a dozen and that is a wonderful thing. Any of you who orient towards the xenophobic should really get out there and travel. Love and cooperation is the common denominator everywhere and if we all realized that there would be a lot less conflict. None the less I miss my family and friends. I confess I did not miss anyone much at first: the excitement of our adventure eclipsed a lot. But as, the adventure morphed into the ordinary, I started feeling pangs of absence. Long ties create deep channels. To lose connection with people you are close to is giving up a part of yourself. My loss was mitigated greatly because I was with Beth, my best friend and always companion.
Place- Everywhere I go I find reassurance from the familiar. I am now in Roanoke Virginia and I might as well be in Albany: the streets are snowed in and the 1920 bungalows are familiar. So are the rolling hills surrounding the city and the vast expanse of woods and farms which stretch on for miles. The same holds true for the most exotic locales we have visited. The beaches of Portugual evoke Cape Cod in Summer and the Sri Lankan jungle feels familiar and much safer than I would have ever anticipated. That said I long for my 3 acres of lawn and woods which have imprinted on me for so many years. It's not because it's special, it's because I have absorbed it.
Routine- This may be the way our trip has affected me most. Traveling as we did forces you to be adaptable and that in turn makes one philosophical. After a while you realize that, except in rare cases, all stress is illusionary. You can take almost any circumstance and decide it is a terrible plight or that it's not so bad and maybe even a good thing when placed in proper perspective. Waiting in lines, stuck in traffic, lost in a strange city are all times which afford you great opportunity to look around and feel the pulse of life. Often the situation that evokes a stress response is also the one that, if taken lightly, grants entrance into being fully present, fully engaged and truly living. It is those accentuated moments in life that stand out in our memories and carry the most weight in our definition of self. The ironic thing is that you do not need to travel to experience the benefits of pushing your limits. It's just much harder to do at home because we all trend towards the comfortable. My lesson from this trip is to try to avoid complacency. To put that philosophy to practice we are going to Pennsylvania tommorow to buy two farm dogs ( puppies) from an Amish family. It should make the five hour trip back interesting and help us from becoming bored when we are finally home. Thanks for reading. ~p
