What most amazes me about traveling is the sense of shock it creates against the everyday routine.
If you stay shorts amount of time in numerous places for an extended period your mind doesn't have enough time to feel comfortable and to create habits. You are forced to pay attention. You realize then the transient nature of life through your eyes and your ears.
The smell of pigeon excrement, the taste of sweet mint tea and the call from nearby minarets mingle into a confusion of experiences that you consume like water to cure your thirst for life.
But now, I question whether it really happened. Did I really go to those far away places? Once I return home to my bed, my friends and family, the world is familiar again.
And again, I find myself reliving old days from beginning to end. I awaken exhausted from the day I haven't yet lived from playing it out in my head.
My mind walks past freedom as if it were a stranger.
But why can't I talk to strangers? Why am I so afraid of them?
First things first. I love this photo.
ReplyDeleteSecond things second: I've been traveling in a country, which, for much of its history has been characterized by war, a country in which people speak three different languages (Arabic, French, and English) in one sentence, a country in which little girls ride their bicycles past men armed with machine guns without a flinch, the only country in the middle east in which gay people are able to express themselves freely, a country in which mosques stand right next to churches and 16 different religious sects are recognized. A country in which there are six women for every one man, a country in which you can be on the beach and in the snowcapped mountains in the space of an hour, a country in which there are no addresses, people don't pay attention to street signs, and where making $1000 a month is a respectable salary. As they say, TIL, this is Lebanon.
All of this, and I find myself actively seeking out things, and people that remind me of home. Why am I afraid of the unfamiliar..where is this lack of confidence coming from. I miss my family, my friends, the things I took for granted. How can my sense of self be so attached to my surroundings, my home, worse yet my possessions (gasp!). No, no, this can't be me. I don't like it, and am fighting it with every passing day. I'm stronger than this. Isn't this what I have been wanting, what I knew I would be facing..perhaps familiarity really does breed contentment, and I'm not as adventurous as I fancied myself to be. Despite this, I'm growing everyday, and hope that, one day, you will join me. I love you Re.