As the date of my return from travel grows further and further away by the day, I'm often catching myself reliving past moments from the recent travel. Such a long time spent on the road provides us with more opportunity to feel life happening. The thrill of jumping from city to city is experienced over and over and becomes part of the routine. Nevertheless as one looks back retrospectively, we realize that even if we feel the monotony beginning to creep in one must put the entire experience in perspective as in: where am I? And: what am I doing here? The answer for me becomes easy and settles the anxiety: I am a traveller and I am travelling. This is something I was thinking of a short while ago...
...I'm imagining waking up to slight sun through curtains and the feeling of not wanting to get up. Reluctantly, I roll over and climb out of bed. Pulling back the curtain I gaze out over the city; alive, moving, passing. The faded red of ageing tram cars; the smoke rising from buildings, houses. The train station and river in the distance. The coming and going of strangers. The flurries floating through the air. Tires on wet pavement. Brakes screeching. The sounds fairly muffled by the thin pane of glass. Through my feet the coldness from the floor trickling up. Is this reinvigoration? Out of nowhere her hands are upon me. Sliding around my waist and then her hair on my shoulders. Later, it would be walking through slushy streets and jumping to avoid puddles. Bags and packs on our backs we dash across the street towards the unknown....this feeling: the waking up in foreign countries. In cities I've never been to. Passing through towns and villages I've never heard of and never likely to encounter again. The snow in the hills and city lights late at night. Arriving and climbing out to discover something new. Despite the frustration of unforeseeable circumstances and stress this kind of travel puts on the body, it's exciting. Writing honestly about the experiences, it's the best. To search the mind for the little instances that remain lodged firmly there is the greatest feeling. After an experience, what remains? How do we come to be who we are? Are we a living amalgamation of these tiny vivid incredibly important moments? The colour is sometimes drained but the feelings it once conjured must surely remain somewhere deep in the psyche. And they must leave some kind of profound residual notion of what it was when it was new. In my mind the train is running. Out the window we're passing rivers. Stopping in villages. The customs agents are boarding our train. We're riding on buses. Listening to TV programs in Turkish. Fending off sleep and trying to read signs to know if we're actually in Стара Загора. We're climbing the hills in Hungary. Taking trains to the ends of their lines. Later on we're swimming in the ocean in November. Walking through castles; having it all to ourselves. Sitting on benches drinking wine. And finally we're laying in bed listening to the rain on the roof wondering when all of this will come to an end. If we leave an epitaph to remember ourselves somewhere along the way, in the hills, or on a rock, or hidden away in a village, maybe, just maybe we'll return to find our former selves and the reinvigoration travel steals and then so generously returns...
