I've often tried to imagine the perfect trip for mindful relaxation. One where worry fades, where beauty abounds, where there is a right amount of a quiet, sensual indulgence, with opportunities to read, write, walk, eat and maybe swim. Different enough from my everyday that it would open my eyes to something new. Oh, and no car required. Wake up with excitement, go to sleep deeply satisfied. Only to be repeated the next day and the day after. I've never found a summer, fall or winter destination that I call comforting in this way. My special place for forever. To be revisited again and again (if time and money permit), because it is that good!
But I keep trying. And maybe it doesn't exist. I visit a new place, I like it, sometimes I come back one more time, but at the end of that stay I know I wont be returning. I'll look for something new. I like it, love it even, but I prefer to keep looking. Maybe my eyes weren't opened enough, maybe the walks weren't in nature, or maybe they didn't feel safe (no more solo hikes scaling summits for me!). Too much traffic (human or automotive), too hard to find interesting local food, too hard to get to (that is a big one!) -- I mean, all fussy disqualifiers to be sure, but enough to push me to keep on searching.
I came up with a place for this October. I knew, even before realizing that my mother was dying, that the summer and early fall would be packed and rather frantic and that the winter would be long (it always is). So I booked this getaway, for this week. And I have high hopes for it!
And while I'm on the subject of fall getaways -- of the distant kind, not just a drive somewhere to observe fall colors -- I might add that I am not the only one who thinks October and November are great travel/escape months (notably without children, because that's a different kind of trip). Yesterday, at the hospital, when I mentioned I was about to leave, word spread in the ER room ("she's going away tomorrow!") and at least three different staff members came in and told me about their forthcoming escapes. Also to new places, far away. "I need a break" was a recurrent theme.
Still on the subject of travel planning, I want to mention again the book I read a couple of weeks ago -- Airplane Mode by Habib. I liked it, but there definitely was a theme to it and that theme bothered me, not because I disagreed with it, but because she was relentless with it and it adds one more stone to throw in with all the others that aim to sink a person's urge to travel. Habib asks us to open our eyes to the fact that travel for pleasure is full of colonial assumptions and premises and it dehumanizes the communities, cities, villages that we visit, putting them on display for the greedy eyes of the so called observer who then proceeds to comment from his or her distant, definitely privileged, and presumably superior position. That's the theme. Again, I don't necessarily disagree, especially with the historical origins of pleasure travel and especially to Europe (think: English upper class trips as a coming of age rite of passage). But of course, isn't everything we do and especially for pleasure, traceable to a history that we dont support or embrace? And is the alternative to lock the gate in your own back yard (should you have one, which, well, would be a privilege right then and there) and never step out? Never try to open your eyes to a different world? Or, should we travel, but realize too at every step that we are not only messing with the planet (airplanes), but with everyone whom we encounter en route? Does it become, therefore, a miserable, pointless, consumeristic and entirely selfish experience? A place to park our cash for our own pleasure?
This I do not agree with.
There were times that I traveled on the cheap. In the worst seats of the worst flights, staying at the most basic b&b's, spending as little as possible on goods and services. (These, by the way, are the tourists that many locals find especially distasteful, particularly now, when you can go really on the cheap by foregoing hotels and packing into airbnb rooms. (I did that! Many, many times!) Now, as I realize that my travel years are very limited (if I can't lift that suitcase up into the overhead, maybe I should just stay home...), I spend my savings more intentionally and I take great pleasure in finding a beautiful room. Not luxurious, just beautiful. So does that make me a better traveler, because I'm boosting local economies?
It's way more complicated than that.
But, though I think about these topics incessantly, I am no longer defensive about my need to explore unfamiliar and beautiful communities. (And what I would call beautiful is not just an assessment of the physical qualities of a landscape. Beauty, too, is complicated!) I do love to immerse myself in them, to watch small daily rituals of people who would rightly consider me to a stranger in their midst. And I do want to show them that I've made the effort to speak a bit of their language. That I am happy to be there. That I am in awe, that I admire and learn.
So, add that to my list of imperatives for travel!
* * *
The day is cooler. October weather! Windy, but still sunny.
Morning images: the crab apple is now abundantly speckled with red apples -- food for the bird population here, come winter.
Who does not love these purple fall asters!
This lily is always the first to bloom and the last to throw out a flower. Happy October, dear one!
Breakfast -- we were to eat together. A little cool for the porch, but doable. And then, just as I was making the coffee, Ed got a work call. So, just me.
He compensated by finding the time to go for a walk. To our favorite county park. Stunning grasses, gorgeous blue skies...
And then it's time for me to leave.
* * *
I'm at the airport, waiting for my flight to Atlanta. From there, I fly to Paris. You might ask -- isn't Paris my perfect escape? I surely go there often enough, always returning to a hotel I love (the Baume in the 6th).
Paris is not, for me, a place to exhale and regain my balance. I'm not tied to any agenda in that city, but I do feel compelled to take advantage of all that I love there. For instance, sitting in my Parisian hotel room all day with a book in hand, should I feel like reading, would seem a waste. And Paris does come with city stresses. People and cars. It's not noisy in the block where I stay, but it is ensconced within an urban landscape. Many people would want to escape to an urban landscape, but I need something gentler to float with. Not wild, but also not too civilized.
Still, Paris is the only city that I truly do love and it is my first stop on this journey. If all goes well, I'll next be writing from Paris.
with love...
