Before my nomadic experience, when I told people I was going to three countries most replies were, “Oh! So you’re going to be just like the girl in ‘Eat, Pray, Love.’”
I knew our itinerary would not be similar or anything close to her experiences, however it challenged me to think of a title for each country if I was to write my own world tour in three words.
This is harder than it sounds.
What I’ve learned though is when we travel or reflect on any set time in our lives, we do tend to create a general statement of how we remember it.
I’ve especially done this with Turkey. I was in search for lessons or a shift inside me while there, but I couldn’t it feel at the time. In the moment, I thought I was void of transformation, but in memory, most of Turkey was an essential prologue and preparation for what would happen in Sri Lanka.
We do this with memory.
When I read through my journal entries of the trip, I’m immediately time traveled into those exact feelings. I can relive the impact it had momentarily.
Then my memory’s mold replaces that sensation.
I recognize this is the fault of my blog posts, because I’m writing about these events in reflection instead of with the thoughts of the moment. It depends on which you prefer, but I think it’s critical to have a mixture of both.
Since each country impacted me wave after wave on a daily basis, I have multiple associations with each place. Yet, I still crave a small phrase for my experience there.
The reason I think it’s important to find a general explanation for each (maybe why we do it naturally) is I’m searching for an overstatement of how I want to preserve those places in my mind.
How I relate to it through my memories will also influence how I share those stories with others. When I return home, I’ll want to craft an overarching narrative to tell others so not to bore them with the details.
Traveling has a way of shedding old skin and exposing new. I left parts of myself in each country but also unearthed dynamics that I did not know were in me.
Even if I were to label those distinct metamorphoses, I would hate to have to summarize them in three words.
I knew our itinerary would not be similar or anything close to her experiences, however it challenged me to think of a title for each country if I was to write my own world tour in three words.
This is harder than it sounds.
What I’ve learned though is when we travel or reflect on any set time in our lives, we do tend to create a general statement of how we remember it.
I’ve especially done this with Turkey. I was in search for lessons or a shift inside me while there, but I couldn’t it feel at the time. In the moment, I thought I was void of transformation, but in memory, most of Turkey was an essential prologue and preparation for what would happen in Sri Lanka.
We do this with memory.
When I read through my journal entries of the trip, I’m immediately time traveled into those exact feelings. I can relive the impact it had momentarily.
Then my memory’s mold replaces that sensation.
I recognize this is the fault of my blog posts, because I’m writing about these events in reflection instead of with the thoughts of the moment. It depends on which you prefer, but I think it’s critical to have a mixture of both.
Since each country impacted me wave after wave on a daily basis, I have multiple associations with each place. Yet, I still crave a small phrase for my experience there.
The reason I think it’s important to find a general explanation for each (maybe why we do it naturally) is I’m searching for an overstatement of how I want to preserve those places in my mind.
How I relate to it through my memories will also influence how I share those stories with others. When I return home, I’ll want to craft an overarching narrative to tell others so not to bore them with the details.
Traveling has a way of shedding old skin and exposing new. I left parts of myself in each country but also unearthed dynamics that I did not know were in me.
Even if I were to label those distinct metamorphoses, I would hate to have to summarize them in three words.
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