So I travel. A lot. And lately I've been trying to think about what it means. I started a list of everywhere I've been (that I can recall) in the past year or so. (Pretty sure this is not a complete list.)
New York City
(3 or 4 times)
Washington, DC
Chicago
Providence, RI
(4 or 5 times?)
Los Angeles
(3 times?)
Las Vegas
(2 times?)
Portland, Oregon
Austin, Texas
San Francisco
San Jose
Detroit
Never left the
airport, but it's been
about a dozen times,
so I'm adding it!
Barcelona, Spain
London, England
Paris, France
(I'm there as I'm writing this...)
Toronto, ON
(In a couple of weeks
from now....)
So in my rumination, I've been kinda trying to get to the implications of all that travel. I've gone from being very involved in my local community to being kind of a drop out. I've gone to becoming more involved in another type of community - a truly global one. Which requires a lot of travel.
I'm not sure what it means exactly to participate in a global community, but I know that it has come to me to mean that no one seems far away, and yet sometimes it feels like hardly anyone is close by. When I am everywhere, it starts to feel like nowhere. Indeed, where I am could be anywhere...
I must admit some of this comes from a culture shock of sorts - I just spent a week in Spain and we arrived in France last night. All I want to do is curl up inside and introspect. Luckily, the rainy weather and fact that most things in Paris are closed on Mondays agree.
Cori and Matt are being very nice and letting me stay back and enjoy this beautiful Parisian apartment.
Some of it is language - I was just starting to feel okay with Spanish / Catalan, and have been plunged into French - a language I just can't seem to pronounce. But some of it is an eerie feeling of a mixture of worldliness and worldlessness.
A look at my Flickr stream reveals that my photos used to be filled with people, and now they are filled with buildings. I mean, I love buildings, I really do. But I also love people. Lately, I literally see people I know who live in other countries more often than friends from home.
Luckily, Nika gets to come with me sometimes.... Here she is on La Rambla in Barcelona, Spain...
It's probably no wonder that I am thinking about this.... Since Erik and I moved into the house we bought a couple of months ago, I've been gone about half of the time. Bad for unpacking, bad for feeling grounded... I love traveling, and I love meeting new people, but I am looking forward to the last couple of months of this year, when I have no travel on the books. (Well, okay, so I am looking forward to a couple of work trips yet this year...heh.)
I keep typing, but seem to be coming to no conclusions. I do know, though, that I love the people I work with, I love the people I travel with, and I love the people at home. That's got to count for a lot!
ps. I seem to have made a mistake. What I thought was coffee (and drank three big cups of) turned out to be espresso. shake shake argh!
