Wanderlust

Today I talked to Darryl, Jodie, Doug, and William. Darryl and Jodie spent the last few years of their lives living in Bella Coola, a town halfway up the coast between Vancouver and Alaska, in an old growth forest full of native salmon and grizzly bears. Doug lived on Guam, the tiny island near the Philippines, and he does a pretty convincing job of describing it as a tropical paradise. William spent his first eight months after college riding a motorcycle from Egypt to South Africa, then he went to Honduras to work on a water development project and tried to drive a Land Rover, towing another Land Rover, back to the U.S. to sell them. (They ended up flipped in a ditch.)

It seems like everyone here has incredible travel stories, and they make me even more eager to see every inch of India that I can this year. Every time I pick up a guide book I find a new place I'd like to visit, and looking at maps seem to pull me in every direction at once. There are snow peaks and rural villages to the north, the holy cities of Haridwar and Rishikesh to the south, and Delhi just beyond that. And that's just within weekend-trip range. For winter break I'm wondering if it's possible to see deserts and camels in Rajasthan, beaches and backwater boat trips in Kerala, the ancient bathing ghats in Varanasi, and the orphanage run by Hannah's friend's family in Kathmandu, Nepal.

I know, I'm thinking it too---relax. I'm sure there's something good and righteous about a wide-eyed, wonder-filled approach to the world, about wanting to dive head first into the depth and breadth of it. But India has the size and diversity of a continent, and I can't see it all. I've been reminding myself to relax and accept my experience for what it is, trying to resist seeing new friends as rivals whose feats I need to match. I've never been a homeless traveler, and I probably shouldn't be. For one thing, it'd be darn hard to be a tourist (I'm not sure I buy the distinction between "tourist" and "traveler") for long without finding that it has too little to do with relationships and too much to do with consumption--meals, hotels, souveniers, etc.

Secondly, and I'm still uncovering this one, I've been wondering if there's a temptation to "collect" experiences the way you might collect baseball cards or books or cds. I'm tempted, especially after hearing the stories of my co-workers, to try to build a list of hikes, journeys, cities, mountains, temples, and such, shoring up adventures against the fear that my life won't be adventurous enough. So that, twenty years from now, I can point to a map and prove that I haven't lived timidly.

I'm admitting these thoughts because I don't think they're legitimate. I don't think living with bright eyes and a sense of wonder requires touring India, or any foreign place. I'm hoping that exposing these thoughts reveals how silly they are, and makes it easier to relax with where I am. I'm still unsure if there's any value in posting them on the web.

It's probably clear that I'll be thinking and learning a lot this year about traveling and settling down, trying to figure out, to use a distinction I've heard in a sermon, whether I'm more of an explorer or farmer. I'll get back to you when I get it figured out. And when I see cool stuff along the way.