How A Poem Cleared Up My Weird Travel Emotions
Did You Know? 1/3 of the world’s airports are located in the U.S. ( v i a )
I was looking through poetry the other day for National Poetry Day & the next thing I know 4 hours passed, I ordered 6 poetry books off Amazon, & I confessed to Wafiq that I’m going to become a song writer.
This too shall pass.
One poem really stood out. Take a quick read:
Let me tell the tale
Of a girl who didn’t stop
Who climbed up every mountain
Without a pause upon the top
She’d dance until each blade of grass
Was clothed in drops of dew
And the sun knew her by name
But the silver moon did too
For a fear had setled in her bones
A fear of sitting still
That if you’re not moving forward
It must mean you never will
So in time her dance got slower
And she looked at all she’d seen
But found gaps inside the places
That she’d never fully been
For she was a human doing
Human moving, human seeing
But she’d never taken time
To simply be a human being
– e.h
When I came back from Dubai I couldn’t figure out why I hated the idea of traveling so much. The biggest drag was talking travel. I couldn’t get inspired or motivated to think about vacations, explorations, studying abroad, beaches, getaways, culture, language, hotels. BLAH.
And this feeling stuck with me until about 3 months ago. I spent at least a year in that feeling of travel = BLAH. I wasn’t even the slight bit interested when I met someone with an international accent, or recently back from another country. It was weird (…and now I’m realizing a little racist?) I used to DIE to ask people thousands of questions about their recent vacations or country/state of origin, but I found myself completely uninterested. (I wrote this post: here during that time, and I can tell, HA!)
I was pretty confused as to why. After all, I’m the girl that moved across the country after high school, studied abroad by myself in a country that I didn’t know the language (at all), moved across the world with a suitcase & no clue what the hell I was going to do! Travel gave me life & truly fulfilled my spirit… I used to spend my life googling where to go & what to do. Who I could meet & where. How I would get there & how I would convince my family I wasn’t crazy.
Why the fuck couldn’t I be amused by it now??!! I felt really bad. Not even a beach vacation?! Boooooring.
When I read this poem it made sense to me. I was always moving, moving, moving, & going, going, going… I swear even if other people didn’t see it, all they had to do was be in my mind. FULL of plans & what’s next, constantly. So afraid of stillness because it meant being stuck.
Without much intention, the past year I’ve gone to bed amazed with what I have & my routine. I got way better at taking time to be present & patient, which I’ve never done before. I literally look at the wall of the rooms where I live & am like “hot damn Katie, you’re fucking living. YES! YES!”. HA!
Although all of those moving, moving, moving choices gave me the best experiences of my life, this is a new kind of best experience – Like they have all been. To be still for a quick minute & feel the stillness is a brand spanking new best experience. Making sense?
Now, do I have plans to pick up my shit & move to Iceland tomorrow? Maybe… I’m getting back to feeling excited about travel & adventures, but it took some time. This poem helped me feel excited about that time, like I’m not going to miss out on being a “human being”. I want to be a human being too! Not just a Human Moving OR a Human Doing! A Human Being!
Anyways, because this particular poem helped me understand myself a little better I really wanted to share it. I wish I read it when I was in the thick of “TRAVEL = BLAH” because it would’ve helped me feel comfortable with the feeling.
Thoughts?
As always, be thoughtful…
Xx