The poetic side of travel.

Maybe it's just me, but traveling brings out the romance in me. I'm not talking about roses and chocolates and long walks on the beach type of romance but instead  the type of romance that comes with an infatuation with everything around me. I'm talking about seeing the world with rose colored glasses. I'm talking about living poetry. By definition, romance fits describing travel perfectly:

ro·mance

rōˈmans,ˈrōˌmans/

noun

1. 1.

   a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.

   
   

   "in search of romance"

   • 
     

     
     
   • 
     

     
     
   • 
     

     
     
   • 
     
2. 2.

   a quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life.

   
   

   "the beauty and romance of the night"

Like a kid in a candy store, I travel with eyes, heart and soul wide open, gobbling up experiences like a child would devour candy.  My senses are on high alert and paying attention to all of the subtle and not so subtle happenings going on around me. I am engaged in my every moment and tend to fall in love with everything and everyone around me.

The beauty of travel is that it does leave you speechless. Sometimes there are simply no words to describe what you are experiencing but more of a feeling that has yet to be defined and labeled with a word.  They are moments of truly "being" present and nothing else. It is in these times where we unknowingly  harvest the sensations where they will remain alive for a while but will then lie dormant until re-ignited by a memory, sight, sound or even smell. These moments come back to us when we are least expecting them. They are our reminders of the lessons we have learned on our travels ~ it's in these times when we have a flashback feeling that we need to pay attention to what it's telling us. 

People have been writing about their travel experiences for thousands of years and it's impact on their lives. They speak of the insights they receive while on their journeys. They speak of the hardships that left them stronger. They speak of the change that occurred within them. They do so while traveling but more often than not, AFTER the fact because that's when the realizations set in.

Some of my favorite travel quotes are simple yet quite profound at the same time. There are times when I feel I'm far too affected by my travels, maybe I'm a little over the top with how I have such emotional  responses to my experiences, but then I read others tales of other travelers and their experiences and realize that I am I'm not over the top but am in fact, right where I need to be : open,  aware and present.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” 
― Marcel Proust

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” 
― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 7: 1966-1974

“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” 
― Mary Anne Radmacher

“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.” 
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography

“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” 
― Pat Conroy

“The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” 
― Christopher McCandless

and lastly . . . 

“No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet.” 
― Patrick Rothfuss

The beauty of travel is that we fall in love with the newness of our experiences. Everything is fresh and exciting, just as it is with a new relationship. Perhaps that is why people love travel so much ~ it helps them fall in love over and over again. We crave that which makes us feel alive.

Some of my most memorable moments while traveling were not monumental in nature, but simple, quiet moments. I am reminded over and over again that to be child like in wonder is the root of happiness. 

While I was in Peru, I did a homestay on Amantani Island on Lake Titicaca. As we got off the boat, we were greeted by the owner of the house, his wife and their four year old son, Christian. Christian was wide eyed and so happy to see us. As we made the trek to the house, he ran along side me, arms swinging by his side and as he ran, a dragonfly flew next to him. Christian trotted along side the dragonfly, surprised by it's presence and reached out to it and welcomed it ~ literally, he laughed and said, " Hola!!"  It was as if they were friends, the dragonlfy and the boy. Christian began singing as we walked and asked me, " Te gusta cantar?" ( Do you like to sing?) I told him yes but that I'm  not that great at it. I asked him if he liked to sing and he replied, " Sii! Yo canto a las abejas en el jardin y me escuchan." Translation: Yes! I sing to the bees in the garden and they listen to me. 

Christian.

Every last thing in me that have ever weighed me down in life disappeared as I talked with Christian. He was the light that shines in the world that I needed to see.  He was the messenger I needed to meet to remind me to continue to embrace the magic of simple moments, to embrace all beings for their worth and to never stop singing the songs of life to any and all that will listen. He was a four year old Peruvian child in love with life and he was everything that my soul needed to experience. 

My wish for you is that you experience moments of such pure joy in life that render you speechless. These moments, like seedlings, get implanted in our souls and with the right amount of nurturing and attention, will continue to grow in ways you'd never imagined. 

In the words of Hans Christian Anderson :