Roam

“Around the world, the trip begins with a kiss.

Roam if you want to…”

The bittersweet moments of departure seem to configure our travels.

Much like the cool, hazy morning that is the perfect precursor to a day within a warm, summery landscape, a moment of reflection can set the pace and tone of our wanderings.

As the days warm and world promises to open up, I’m starting to gather my travelling paraphernalia.

The prospect of time spent roaming is becoming real again and I know that journeying well requires both mental and physical preparation. So I’m checking through my rucksacks, cleaning boots, proofing wet weather gear or, depending on the day, carefully inspecting my bike. It’s a well-rehearsed routine.

My preference is to travel lightly; a minimalist endeavour that strips away unnecessary baggage from within and without.

Which for me, becomes the point…

Distance, in itself, can be a distraction. The real journey is inwards.

I know I’ve often travelled with the urge to be somewhere else; expecting to find rest, recuperation or resolution far away. But this a deflection from addressing the problems that preoccupy me and holding relentless focus on a destination reduces the possibilities of discovery as I wander. These days, my hopes are twofold: that I will go far enough to find the edges of my self-reliance and lean into the vulnerability of fatigue, and, as Bill Bryson says, to “experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.”

As we tire on the route, perhaps we will find that the biggest reward of travel is in the moment of return; finding ourselves back among faces we know and love, and seeing them differently, preciously, realising that we have arrived where we need to be.

So that even though we might roam around the world, the trip ends with a kiss.

Notes:

I really hope that the creativity and naive fun of the ‘Roam’ video finds it’s way back into fashion. And those voices…. Have a listen to this incredible ‘vocals only’ version!

Ancient wisdoms tell us that we are either creatures of the mountain, coastal or forest. I love mountains and coastlines though (delightfully) feel like I am a stranger there. So I guess I’m a forest creature… (My photograph is of the trees just across the road from our home… have a look at the #1000Steps project)

Finally, there’s a few lines in Thoreau’s ‘Walden’ that I return to: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”