Sunday, June 2, 2013

Travelling: the Oopsies & the Daisies

I'm back from a vacation and I feel like I need another one.

Isn't that always the case? I love my job, I would be very ungrateful if I didn't. There is however always the thrill of the unseen, the not-yet experienced that calls out to the nomad in us.

My mother brought this travelling bug alive in me. She is convinced that I have only lately started liking travelling because whenever she made plans for us to go gallivanting as a family, I'd never be too impressed. I have tried in vain to tell her that was mostly because she insisted on dragging me to religious shrines where I would either have to walk barefoot on hot stones or climb 1500 steps or go down wet caves just because it brought us closer to God.

I felt closer to God watching the sunrise in Muscat & seeing the first rain in Goa & listening to Vivaldi in the Sainte Chappelle in Paris. I even felt the hand of God when I magically got a spot directly in front of the Buckingham Palace gates to see the changing of the guard.

I have always felt the need to not sit around interspersed with the need to not do anything. So I vacillate between periods of intense activity & periods of intense nothingness. It's not a normal life or a healthy one; but it is my own & I rather like it.

But its not like I'm not travelling when I'm sitting still. I'm busy reading or watching TV -- two genuine interests of mine. I am as invested in some fictional characters as much as real people. I don't confuse the lines between the two though; not yet anyway.

That begs the question, am I really ever sitting still? The answer is no. I cannot ever just sit down & not do anything. There is just so much going on in the world and we have such less time here; who has the time to sit still? My friend once described my head as a big railway station with atleast 7 trains of thought pulling in & heading out at the same time.

I feel a strange sense of an out-of-body experience when I'm travelling, even if its for work. I feel my brain shifting into the take-advantage-of-every-moment gear; a gear which is usually absent in everyday life. I'm always looking around instead of staring at my phone, I prefer to walk instead of hailing a taxi & I love shopping so much. No wait, scratch the last one, I ALWAYS love shopping!

I do hate the uncertainities though, the things that invariably go wrong, the weather that turns cold & grey, the car that stops working, the museum shut for renovation. But then, there is always a chance & a hope of that one perfect little story coming out of the trip. The story that makes your friends nod their heads in understanding or make them throw back their heads with laughter.

There are so many stories to be told, so many places to be amazed by; but now that I have been to some of the places I always wanted to go to, I feel a curious sense on being satisfied & being very unsatisfied all at once. This must be the most common of human emotions -- the urge of wanting more while accepting you may have more than you deserve.

So while I don't believe I deserve all the amazing-ness life has given me... Please sir, may I have some more?

7 comments:

  1. Darling, please keep on writing. love the way you write as it's so easy to read and relate to it. You know how traveling and making decisions is on my agenda right now. think this post helped me to make my decisions :)

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  2. I am quite sure you deserve all this and more.. very well written but I guess you that already :) Look forward to more.

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  3. "Not everyone is lucky enough to have the ability and resources in their life to try to satisfy their inner-nomad (if that's at all possible). I hope you'll decide soon that you do deserve the "amazing-ness" life has given you. Who else should get to decide that?! Can't wait for your next adventure."

    -- Karen

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  4. I couldn't agree more. Having been fortunate enough to have traveled all my life (although in my childhood I sometimes felt the lack of a single spot in which to sit was a curse not a blessing) it seems that the more I see the more I "need" to see. I now feel the pull of my favourite places - Rome, Boston, Sydney, LA, Vegas, the Serengeti, Mpumalanga, Amboseli - and those I long to see - Alaska, Zanzibar, Kakadu, the Whit Sundays, Vietnam, Jaipur - but without teh time to do it all.

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  5. Love the post, Ipshi! And couldn't agree more. There's something about being in a new place that suddenly brings with it a lot more energy than i thought I had. :)

    Keep writing!

    xxx
    Anita

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  6. well written, but Ipshi dear, u can do better as i've seen earlier! but ya i agree God can be experienced any where and we dont need to go to a place of worship for that. I also think that the actual travelling to a place is not the only thing, the planning, the booking, the hundred and one things that we do before and after are as much magical as the going and coming... isnt it?

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  7. Thanks guys & di -- I totally know what you mean... I felt this one needed something more, i just couldn't understand what it was

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