Bon Jovi Is Right

Real life can be a real kick in the face, you know?

For some reason I’m always surprised when it re-occurs to me just how simple it is to live out of a suitcase.  The fact that everything you need for your day/night/life fits inside a space one foot-by-two feet wide seems bizarre as soon as you walk into your house and see walls sporting photographs and shelves and books and candles and, well, stuff.  You get the picture.  Each time I arrive back to my small collection of belongings, I know I’m back to reality.  Reality: coming home to memories on the same walls every day.

As fantastic as it is so be in Glastonbury or London or Oxford or Cambridge, being on the precipice of the return journey somehow always sneaks up on me.  It’s simple to switch into the Travel Mindset, where you hit your stride and are on constant alert for exploring a new place.  Traveling is much simpler than people make it out to be.  It’s not like football or flying a helicopter or handling Charlie Sheen’s PR.

You go, you see and do, you listen and ask questions and get your mindset rebooted, and you get a large dose of humble pie along the way; but exploring is quite simple once you make up your mind to do it.  And best of all, you don’t have to go far to explore.  Think of how little you know your neighborhood, let alone the hills around your city.

Really traveling is like really falling in love: when it starts you think of nothing else, when you’re in the middle of it you cannot fathom it ever ending, and when it does end, re-entering your real life is so surreal it’s difficult to keep a grip on reality.

The hardest part is leaving.  Especially when a bit of you has suctioned onto a particular town, a remarkable hidden inn, or a handful of keenly kindred souls. Especially when you’re staring down the barrel of a long, twisty bus ride, the insanity of London and Heathrow, bus stations and train stations, seventeen hours of recycled airport air and greasy food and greasy people… well, I will be missing England all the while.

Now if someone could only explain to me how I got stopped not one, not two, not three, but four times for “random” security checks, that would be great.  Even after intentionally wearing nothing with metal, even purposely plucking my eyebrow so as not to look like my freedom fighter middle-eastern heritage, even after leaving my deodorant behind in hopes of making it through security (in hindsight, not the greatest plan) – even then, four different tiny British folks patted me down, felt me up, interrogated me about where I had been (not kidding) and finally rubbed my bags down to check for explosives residue.  Sorry, Heathrow Airport.  I left my tank back in Texas.

But all joshing aside, my mindset has been refurbished.  Total overhaul.  Shot to the heart, and travel’s to blame. (What has England done to me when I start quoting Bon Jovi?)

We need to be shot every now and again. It keeps us from falling into complacency and satisfaction with sub-par life situations.  I cannot wait to explore, to really know the Texas countryside again.  It’s been a while since I went vagabonding at home.  How simple! All the stresses of travel become moot when you explore your native land: you automatically speak the language, you know the culture and won’t inadvertently tell someone to F off, there’s no need to change over currency, transportation (usually) is not so much an issue, and if the stuff hits the fan there will always be someone relatively close by to bail you out. Perfect.

SO GOOD–

Post Script: Somehow I managed to be pretty slack on postings over the last few weeks; therefore there will be residual photos and tales popping up every now and again.