"What a life you have!" This, from a friend recently as we were discussing our travels. Upon reflection of her own, she quickly amended, "What a life we both have!" And it's true. We are lucky to have made lives of exploration. I've written about travel before - it should come as no surprise given my career in the industry - but there's something about the kinship one feels in the presence of another traveler. The similarities and differences in our stories cement a sacred bond. The pins I've added to the map aren't anything to brag about among true globe-trotters and there are many more I'd like to add before I'm done, but I'm truly and eternally grateful for what I've seen.
We get one chance. One pass in this life. And there's a whole lot to see.
I do wish I was a more graceful traveler. I use my high school French and Sesame Street Spanish, my hands and a smile to connect - receiving food (and coffee) each day are the trophies of linguistic victories. There are defeats as well: "baklava" sounds a lot like "bottled water" to some and "sweet time" evidently draws blushes from others when describing dessert. Yet, somehow the cure for a sore throat (tea with lemon, honey and bourbon) is conveyed using a language of gestures and interpretive dance. We don't all come to it naturally. I certainly don't. But my life- and travel-partner and I agreed many years ago that we would be people who DO things rather than people who HAVE things. We have made travel a priority and the achievement of balance between work life and life life is our compass bearing. Among the lessons learned: one life pays for the other.
It's all about breaking down the barriers of culture and language and history and presumptions. And it can be daunting. Perhaps our ghosts will be able to pass more easily through the walls we construct in this life, but I can't wait that long. I blunder and stumble and get used to feeling ridiculous. I'm not out-going by nature and it takes some time for people to notice me in the room - ask that waiter in Zürich. But give me three days, and you'll miss me when I'm gone. Once, after masquerading as Canadian for several days in Italy, one host urged me to be proud of my American-ness - "we need to know that there are nice ones." Well, then.
For some of my colleagues and friends, the thought of herding themselves onto an airplane is a busman's holiday. I get it. "Getting there" isn't nearly as much fun as it used to be. But, oh what rewards! I pull out pictures of temples and beaches like a proud grandparent with a folio of grinning toddlers. (I'll see your "first steps" and raise you a truly magical midnight swim in the crater of a volcano!) For others, as soon as the uniform is off, on come the sunglasses, hiking boots and the appetite for a new adventure.
And the stories we tell! And the ones we don't. Pins on a map and stamps in a passport - the passion of collecting. What a life, indeed!
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