Where Will Two Lovers Travel Today?
Do we travel to find or to lose our true selves?
“The good traveler leaves no traces” Lao Tzu
My girlfriend was very telegraphic in communicating with me. You do not understand, she told me, that people need to travel to forget themselves and their daily lives.
The whole point of holidays for her was to take a break away from oneself, escape from familiar structures and routines, troublesome Freudian deep thinking of the sort of “To live or not to live” and just spend a few days getting drunk without a worry in the world.
“If one wanted to psychoanalyze himself or herself and make a dive into oneself as you claim, would it not be far better to do it in Winter without risking the possibility of having a sunburn pondering the complexities of life?” she asked. “Summer is to get away from ourselves because we have enough of us during working months. We don’t want the simplicity of the familiar, we want the adventure and unexpected exploration. We want to travel to the unknown and not the forest nearby that hides very little surprises for us. Captain Kirk and the crew of Startrekers knew that only too well. To boldly go there, where no man has gone before and Coronavirus can hardly be an obstacle to that” she just as equally boldly declared.
Her words made me think.
As time goes on I realize that my travels are like trying to interpret and understand another reality. It helps me to better understand the vibrations of my heart, the mysteries of my soul, the games of my mind.
Every trip should not be the same as the previous one, even if we are constantly going to the same place. But to me, as time goes by, my journeys raise new questions. Questions about what I am looking for, what I find, what I discover every time I move about. Every trip is like a sacred temple, where the sanctuary and the secret of the place are hidden very deep and only too well.
Over time, I discovered that the way we organize our trip is like mapping. It has rules and procedures that are different for each one of us. The time we dedicate to it, the companions we choose, the place we decide to visit, the criteria that ultimately lead us to our final choice. All these and many more are searches that go very deep inside us. Finally, let us not forget that our wandering concerns are a small part of the peel of a planet lost in some corner of the vast universe.
And yet. Something has made us, humans, unable to stop wandering. From the beginning until today. Each trip is an entrance into multiple realities. Departure, return, adventure, ethics, passion, boundaries, speed are all dimensions that each one of us interprets differently.
In the past, I was being critical to what I described as the naivety of the tourist while I unfairly glorified the traveler’s attitude with similar ignorance on my part. The road to understanding these two main subjects who travel, has always been always a sensitive path.
I am no longer of the same mind frame. Ever since we have been desert nomads and moved around in search for food, necessity has been the main reason that moves us somewhere. And this is common for both, the tourist and the traveler. If the path has “heart” and meaning το a purpose then the trip is worth making it.
But the issue for my girlfriend was intriguing and important. Given the fact that I am in love with her, we had to decide where we would be going on vacation this year. Together. This would be our first joint trip since we had been a couple for a few months now, amidst the fear of coronavirus , living at a distance of about a thousand kilometers away from each other.
Consequently her decision was not to give in to the hypnotic trance state of a lounger in front of a Mediterranean beach that smells of sun lotion, easily disturbed by voices of loud tourists. In her proposal for a London trip where shopping and walks would be perhaps uniquely romantic, I was skeptical. The number of increasing daily cases and the dangers of being quarantined for several weeks after any deterioration was the main reason.
As soon as she suggested to me to visit one of the most beautiful islands in the world, Santorini, to enjoy the view of our room’s balcony overlooking the volcano, I was happy for a moment. After a short while, however, I reacted negatively since I could not stand the idea that something like the virus would prevent us from meeting interesting people this year and exploring landscapes. All these thoughts rendered her idea obsolete. But most importantly something in my mind wanted passionately to explore and “find a self within my other self”.
I explained to her that traveling is power. It is a meeting with the value of other people through their looks, their habits, their ways, and their words. There is a kind of eternal youth there. This is what I am looking for. I am not going to change it. It fills me up with joy.
The time for the decision, however, had arrived. The question was pressing. Where are two lovers traveling to in our days and why; What are they looking for? Will they travel together to see, to hear, to feel, to get lost, or to just run away from the coronavirus harsh reality endgame ?
My girlfriend, an experienced Hotel manager herself was adamant. Travel and dreams are an escape from reality, she texted me.
So? where are we going? I asked innocently contemplating the mood in her reaction over the phone. I dream of wild mountains she replied, savannahs and cities of India near the rivers that smell of ash and spices. If things were different her words would excite me. An example of a strong traveler’s soul and an irrevocable decision to live in wonder,
“ vivere miracolosamente ” as the Latin poets say.
I looked at myself. I saw for the first time that I had no purpose, I had not even prepared for the trip, I had no idea what to do and where I was going.
I was not interested in the place of destination for the first time in my life, but the way I would use it. The idea of meeting her was the purpose that rushed me and spread adrenaline everywhere.
Where to; Anywhere, anyplace, anytime. Perhaps the most dramatic and tender definition of love is this. Love is to see only what you want to see. Where? Anywhere, anyplace, anytime.