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On the road again...
I love travelling. 
The week leading up to your departure is often the most exciting. Friends you haven't gotten around to catching up with for a while are suddenly clamouring for a chance to hang out before you leave, as though there's suddenly emerged a 'need' or 'real reason' to put good intentions into action.
People you haven't spoken to in ages are suddenly anxious to find out where you're going, why, and for how long? You start making plans with those on the other side of the world eager to pick up the friendships you once left behind.
Your 'to do' list has stretched to double its normal size, and for a time you shove the thought of physically leaving at the corner of your mind. No time to get excited just yet, you think, every time you're tempted to stop to smile. Finally it comes to packing - translation for: throw a 20kg pile of clothes into a suitcase and hope for the best.
Finally, you pause for breath. I stared at my open suitcase, and the sight brought back to life the reality of what I was about to do. I was going back to London. The place where this blog really began.
Last year, London was where I made so many revelations, both personal and professional, and so many promises, and plans for the future. In the year that has passed since then much has changed, promises broken, plans fallen apart. Yet it has always been, as a result, the place I have looked to for greener pastures.
After all, I haven't been "stuck somewhere between Sydney and London" for no reason at all.
I had booked my tickets earlier this year in an attempt to make the return pilgrimage, to salvage something from it all, or at the very least, to see what the place still has to offer.
Oh, the joys of impermanence. The sheer luxury it entails. Freedom always seems to come shrouded in impermanence, beneath the subtlest of disguises, at the very best of times. Travelling provides you with the perfect alibi. You are 'busy travelling' and therefore legitimately unavailable, indefinitely. Your right to disconnect from the world you know, is validated as soon as you shut your suitcase.
That wish you often make - when buried in commitments, when staring at a line of endless traffic, when running on 9-5 urban autopilot - to cast off the shackles of familiarity and identity is finally granted once you step through the automatic doors of the international terminal. You become nobody to everybody as soon as you turn your back on your loved ones and disappear beyond the sign aptly labelled 'Departure Gates'. For a moment, you are itching to turn and run back. And then you are overwhelmed with the freedom that comes with the possibility that you might never return. It crowns you with your very own halo.
And as great as I'm sure coming home will be, yet again, that restless part of me that longs to flee was awakened with a ticket and a suitcase. I've been gone about two weeks now, and am currently somewhere in greater Europe. Snapshots from my trip so far are coming up soon.
Stay tuned.
|
The week leading up to your departure is often the most exciting. Friends you haven't gotten around to catching up with for a while are suddenly clamouring for a chance to hang out before you leave, as though there's suddenly emerged a 'need' or 'real reason' to put good intentions into action.
People you haven't spoken to in ages are suddenly anxious to find out where you're going, why, and for how long? You start making plans with those on the other side of the world eager to pick up the friendships you once left behind.
Your 'to do' list has stretched to double its normal size, and for a time you shove the thought of physically leaving at the corner of your mind. No time to get excited just yet, you think, every time you're tempted to stop to smile. Finally it comes to packing - translation for: throw a 20kg pile of clothes into a suitcase and hope for the best.
Finally, you pause for breath. I stared at my open suitcase, and the sight brought back to life the reality of what I was about to do. I was going back to London. The place where this blog really began.
Last year, London was where I made so many revelations, both personal and professional, and so many promises, and plans for the future. In the year that has passed since then much has changed, promises broken, plans fallen apart. Yet it has always been, as a result, the place I have looked to for greener pastures.
After all, I haven't been "stuck somewhere between Sydney and London" for no reason at all.
I had booked my tickets earlier this year in an attempt to make the return pilgrimage, to salvage something from it all, or at the very least, to see what the place still has to offer.
Oh, the joys of impermanence. The sheer luxury it entails. Freedom always seems to come shrouded in impermanence, beneath the subtlest of disguises, at the very best of times. Travelling provides you with the perfect alibi. You are 'busy travelling' and therefore legitimately unavailable, indefinitely. Your right to disconnect from the world you know, is validated as soon as you shut your suitcase.
That wish you often make - when buried in commitments, when staring at a line of endless traffic, when running on 9-5 urban autopilot - to cast off the shackles of familiarity and identity is finally granted once you step through the automatic doors of the international terminal. You become nobody to everybody as soon as you turn your back on your loved ones and disappear beyond the sign aptly labelled 'Departure Gates'. For a moment, you are itching to turn and run back. And then you are overwhelmed with the freedom that comes with the possibility that you might never return. It crowns you with your very own halo.
And as great as I'm sure coming home will be, yet again, that restless part of me that longs to flee was awakened with a ticket and a suitcase. I've been gone about two weeks now, and am currently somewhere in greater Europe. Snapshots from my trip so far are coming up soon.
Stay tuned.
|
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