Lift off! Birds taking flight…look at the spirited fellow on the right, dipping his head, leaning forward, feet gripped tight on craggy rocks before a take off. What a way to view the world – from up high.
But my feet are planted on terra firma. And there are no feathers sprouting from my shoulder blades to grant me wings. The only wings I know are the ones that come with the cost of an airplane ticket and are sprayed with “A380” in the colours of Emirates Airlines.
Flights of Fancy, Cape Sounio, Attica, Greece: f/10; Exposure 1/60sec; ISO-100
The way I see it, travel not only invites me to see the world anew, it gives me an unaccustomed look at who is doing the seeing – me. None of the benefits of travel compare to the oblique glance it allows me of myself; a mirror if you will. In an odd way, by placing myself outside of my natural habitat (whatever that is), travel provides me with the distance required to see what it is I am habitually doing and the anonymity to be daring; to risk new ways of living, albeit in a foreign part of the world.
Anantara Maldives Grey Heron: NIKON D3000 f/18; Exposure 1/125sec; ISO-100
No, I do not travel to get away from it all. For “all” is in my head anyway! Travel fails as escape but it succeeds as confrontation: just who am I? What do I love doing? What irritates me? When my usual confirmatory surroundings are left behind, and I am deposited in novel settings, a facet of myself is allowed the space to emerge. A new bit of me I get to see!
Travel inspires fresh ways of being. There seems to be nothing like immersion in another culture for staving off the mind’s tendency to fossilization. I travel to grow, to wake up, and to congratulate the me who I love to be.
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