There is something I've gained from every trip I've taken. Each location resonates in me one way or another. Each place has called to my heart to return, but of all the places I've been, there have only been four in the continental United States that I've returned to time and time again. Monterey, CA, Annville, PA, Tampa, FL, and New York City.
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I've found that it is not the scenery, club scene, nor quality of restaurants in these places, that causes me to return. To me, although I generally seek adventure and new experiences, there are certain traits from my exploration to which I find myself drawn time and time again. I've learned in life, you can see the most beautiful sights and participate in the most crazy exploits, but if you cultivate no connections along the way, the road can quickly become devoid of meaning, and then, instead of revelling and enjoying your journey to self discovery, you can find yourself flailing without an anchor, seemingly happy to untrained eyes, but truly empty and alone. Essentially living a Beat Generation existence in true form: travel, passion, alcohol, sex, debauchery, but missing vitality of the soul.
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I just returned from one of the most beautiful islands in the world, Republica Dominicana. To date, this is the only international location which I've revisited. I spent a month there last February, mountain biking, wandering, hiking, dancing, and meeting people. This time I spent just one week on the island. The motivation, to the passive onlooker, might obviously have been the First International Bachata Festival. The opportunity to be part of history, where the people who love bachata travel from the other side of the world for the first time to celebrate its existence in the bachata capital of the world. However, in truth, it wasn't the festival itself so much as the prospect of having the chance to experience, once again, relationships I'd created along my path to self discovery at said festival that brought me to purchase the full pass and airfare.
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My participation in Couchsurfing.org has brought to me a lightness of spirit in travel and life in general. In learning to be open to making connections, hearing stories, and sharing moments with new friends around the world, the states, and close to home, I've become much more free with my heart. In past musings, I was known to say I loved horses and dogs, tolerated people...and it was true. In a crowded room, I was always amongst strangers, surrounded by acquaintances, distracted by thoughts of places...potential... practicalities. Half listening to everyone, half wishing I could disappear and hear no one. Half wanting them to like me, half not caring if they despised me. Half wanting recognition, half wanting to be ignored. Always with one foot out the door. Always on the outside looking in, and thoroughly enjoying the seclusion of separation; if only mental. Always judging. Always convinced nobody understood me, my plight, my story, and more so, feeling it wasn't worth explaining the restlessness and subtle boredom I felt around them.
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That was then, this is now. No, I'm not referencing The Greasers. Though I enjoyed the genre thoroughly as a child.
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Through travelling with nearly nothing, I've been exposed to the goodness of people: that spark in a soul that tempts your heart to reveal itself unabashed, and in turn nourishes the subsequently planted seed of friendship. With this gradual change in ideology, my horizons have expanded infinitely. I barely recognize my recent self when I consider the chained, dark moments of years past. The beauty of the transition is its subtlety. There was never a specific day I consciously chose to open my mind and heart to accept people from different paths. There was no distinct moment where I decided to be connected as opposed to removed.
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I woke up one morning on a creaky, damp mattress sans sheets in a jungle cabin with no electricity near Puyo, Ecuador, covered in mosquito bites and smiling. I fought my way out from under the faulty mosquito net, and made my way to the crudely assembled wooden table in the kitchen, revelling in the sound of a torrential jungle downpour beating on the thatched roof. I smelled of sweat with a twinge of mildew, but not enough to overpower the sweet scent of Mother Nature's 100% organic cleaning solution that softly kissed my face in a misty breeze as I passed an open window. I greeted a couple from Riobamba, 4 Finnish girls, and a couple from Seattle that had already been wandering for four months when I sat down. Together we relaxed, shared stories, laughed, and enjoyed breakfast to the melody of a careless percipitation. It was in that moment I realized I wasn't on the outside looking in. I wasn't feigning interest. I was intrigued, and it wasn't forced. The best part? I realized in that moment that I would only be excluded in my future if I chose to be, because I recognized the lightening effect relationships have on your being.
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There is something I've gained from every trip I've taken. Each place resonates in me one way or another. Each place has called my heart to return, but it's not the scenery, club scene, or quality of restaurants that tempts me. Solely people have the ability to lasso my spirit and draw it back to a location with me in tow. Whether it's Wlady in Ecuador, Don, Knikki, Tim, or any of my Chilkat Guides family in Alaska, Jota and Dina in DR, Cat in Monterey, David in England, Jorge in Spain, family in NY, FL, and PA, Peter, Aut, or Spaci in Czech Republic, Marydale in Afghanistan, Maurycy, Pawel, Erik or Quin in Seattle, Merlin, Rebecca, or La Familia de la Salsa in Watertown and Syracuse...whoever, wherever. These casually cultivated close connections are the true reason I return.
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These days I am proud to declare honestly that I love horses, dogs, AND people.
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