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One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.-Henry Miller
At this very moment (who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow), I have a great need to get away. From what? I’m not sure. Actually, I think I have the need to wander; it’s a subtle difference, but the need to go is different than the need to get away. I call it my ‘gypsy blood,’ although there's no evidence that I actually have any real gypsy heritage.
Between the ages of 16 and 30, I moved around often. I don't think I spent more than two consecutive years in the same house or same town, and I convinced myself I needed to move. Now I think I get the same relief from traveling without a firm itinerary. What I didn't know back then was that I didn't need to physically relocate my household, I just needed whatever it is I get from interacting with other travelers, meeting people with different experiences, seeing things I’ve never seen, feeling life happening again after I've let it stagnant around me in my tiny hometown, watching the sunset from a different horizon (or from a horizon at all, considering I don't have one at home)....
It's time for a trip and I don't care where I go. My feet are getting twitchy and my lightest suitcase is beckoning from the back of my closet. The world is vast and I have an urgent need to see more of it.
“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese