3 Cups of Nescafe later...

I once met an evergreen student named Amber.  She'd been living with Bedouin families, collecting folk songs and traditional dances.  One night, we were all sitting on a dune top playing a geography game, smoking nargela, and I asked her to expound upon the romance of the Bedouin lifestyle.  She said that it was "great n'stuff, but eventually you begin to see that it's just the same shit as at home - with different people."

I think that she was right...but not in the way that she meant.
We carry ourselves around.  As a traveler, I can safely say that I have carried "the same shit" with me to every place I that I visit.  I'm not talking my super-cute dirty underwear bag, or my purple TekTowel.  I'm not even talking about my grubby old brown purse that my mother looks at a bit skeptically every time I pull it from the closet, "maybe you'd like to take something else?" she suggests. 

So many people fear travel, especially solitary travel.  It fascinates them, and titillates them with the odd romance of someone finding themselves suddenly foreign.  It is fascinating, titillating, and romantic.  It is also scary.  Not because of the 5'3" tall men who grab your braid and kiss your neck (yes mom, it happened, two days ago.  Don't worry, I stomped on his foot and he let go.  I'll tell you later...).  It's most certainly not because of the scams in bars, or the falls into piles of dog poo, or the sprained ankles.  Those are just adventures to learn from and laugh about.

Travel is a fearful thing because you cannot avoid yourself.

Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote that travel takes us out of the distracting routines of our lives and brings us face to face with ourselves.  It removes our shoes and helps us to feel the earth as cutting flint underfoot.  A traveler can no longer run at their normal pace - and often, they catch up with themselves.

I finally caught up with myself in Scotland last year.  If any of you remember, I came home aglow.  Everyone thought I was in love!  (and I was...with myself.)

I carry insecurities, obsessive interests, habits, propensities.  Sometimes things heal or drop away, sometimes they're still in my heart waiting to be worked on when I get home.  There is always some of the same old shit tagging along - with different scenery.

As someone who has traveled a bit, I think that the fear is a bit like the swine flu...it sounds mysterious, deadly, and dirty.  But if lil'ol me can handle it, so can all y'all.  (not that I've had the swine flu...)


--
Lindy Cameron Schroeder