Holly Winter: Living the Life of Holly: #232: Today I Travel

Travel obsession has pushed me to the fringes: the jungles of Ecuador where less than a hundred people venture each year, the beaches of the Canary Islands where I took my first camel ride, impoverished cities in Haiti where mobs took to the streets and banged on our locked van while we hid inside, and to Canada where frostbite nearly claimed my feet. Whatever the conditions, I yearn to travel. Like a two-year-old who has been tied to a car seat for years and needs to stretch her legs, I’m so ready to go.

In life choices are but a closed window waiting for an opening. When it comes to the journey, my only choice has always been to nod in quick agreement. I can’t remember the last time I turned down an invitation to anywhere. A cabin in the mountains? Sure. My parent’s house? Ok. How about a few days driving, then stay in a small hotel where we’ll listen to a mountain stream? Why not! I’m like the proverbial dog, standing at the front door of life waiting for a ride in the car, perpetual droopy face melts to all smiles the moment the front door opens. Whooeee, I’m free!

Travel? I’m not waiting for the world to come to me, I’m running at her—full force, collecting evidence of experience one click at a time, each photo spelling out, “You can’t see THIS at home.” Snap. “You have to open your eyes if you want to witness this.” Snap. “Bet you didn’t know this even existed, did you?” Snap.

The world needs enthusiasm to make her shores less distant; so I release my inner spy, collecting stories and recording events between my door and every possible distant point. I’ll watch children bike around broken glass in Spain, ride in the trunk of a car in Puerto Rico, build a sand castle in Mexico, practice English in Germany, and play in a school yard in the Bahamas. I’ll record my world as I see her, old and tattered with people piled at her most beautiful vistas where they eagerly explore.

I’ll march into the unknown where things could go wrong: people might be terrible, weather conditions brutal and simplicities like food so expensive I’ll be reduced to eating breakfast cereal several times a day. I could get terribly hurt and held in a foreign hospital on a dirty cot with cockroaches walking across the sheets before my family smuggles me out, as occurred in Mexico. The boat could break down and we could be stuck waiting on a coffee plantation where the only possible escape is to find another boat, as happened in Ecuador. I could be held at border patrol where lonely guards figured a woman traveling alone would be fun to spend time with, as I discovered in Holland. I could be arrested at the airport when accidentally carrying a cheese knife in my carry on bags and be forced to sign a statement of guilt written in Greek, while my translator promised to take me home with him if I can’t leave the country, as happened in Greece. This and more has colored my travel journals, still I journey, albeit more carefully. The only way I can capture travel memories is to step out of my life, letting my mask of sameness fall so the new can fill me.

Everything could flow on this trip. I could wonder about Flamenco dancing, then meet a premier dancer who takes me on a tour of the best places as her guest, as happened in Spain. I could be introduced to a fisherman who takes me spear fishing the old fashioned way: you swim around in the ocean holding a spear gun and shoot any fish that happens by, as I experienced in the Caymans. I could be given a first class cabin during an overnight ferry ride by a kind attendant, as I lucked out on in Greece. I could find a beach so beautifully quiet where I happily spent lazy days watching the Bald Eagles take flight over the ocean, as I did in Alaska. I could spend an afternoon in a foreign city and meet two people who become life long friends, just like I did in Trieste, Italy. I could meet powerful shaman brothers as I did in Ecuador, whom after I answered hours of questions, in Spanish, to feed their curiosity about my teaching on an Indian reservation, offered me a powerful gift that will protect me on all future travels. Adventure stories chatter about in my mind.

Past travel memories settle into my suitcase, but I don’t let them. No. Not permissible. Each destination is new, no old baggage, good or bad is invited. Only by leaving everything behind may I return—changed.

I’m off to meet my man who is already in that far away time zone. We’ll tour Tuscany as crush season pronounces his decade birthday celebration. For the next days, I won’t be Holly-of-the-ordinary. I’ll become more present, more alive in each moment. Food will be enjoyed, conversations sought. I’ll be the Holly who eats in a new place every night, the Holly who trains to new destinations, the Holly who needs a map to find her way back to bed.

Today I travel.

Now. This minute. It’s time. My world beckons as I fall into the arms of adventure.

Holly answers all e-mails. E-mail her:
holly@livingthelifeofholly.com

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