“I had an itch to roam. I wanted to wander through Europe, to see movie posters for films that would never come to England, gaze wonderingly at billboards and shop notices full of exotic umlauts and cedillas…hear pop songs that could not by even the most charitable stretch of the imagination be a hit in any country but their own, encounter people whose lives would never again intersect with mine, be hopelessly unfamiliar with everything, from the working of a phone to the identity of a foodstuff.”
“Is there anything, apart from a really good chocolate cream pie and receiving a large unexpected check in the mail, to beat finding yourself at large in a foreign city on a fair spring evening, loafing along unfamiliar streets in the long shadows of a lazy sunset, pausing to gaze in shop windows or at some church or lovely square or tranquil stretch of quayside, hesitating at street corners to decide whether that cheerful and homey restaurant you will remember fondly for years is likely to lie down this street or that one? I just love it. I could spend my life arriving each evening in a
Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There
2007 had been a banner year for me, travel-wise. I have been to different places, to distant and not so distant lands. There has always been a compulsion for me to travel and see new places. One of my earliest memories was I riding on my dad’s car going off to somewhere. I remember the enjoyment, and the excitement. It might not have been some far-away place- but I vividly recall the act of traveling itself, and that is embedded in my subconscious as a pleasant thing. In a parallel universe, I could be a travel writer, or just simply an explorer. I could be the Filipino Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson.
The destination does not have to be some exotic location or some foreign lands, but the joy of discovery and sojourn has always been delight for me. It does not matter if the journey is just a neighboring town, or a nearby spot. I find that the travel itself as well as the place brings floods of delight. Here is a secret joy: there is great pleasure in the few moments just after you arrive at some destination where the hustle and bustle of traveling has just stopped, and you have just stepped out for the first time. I treasure those few silent moments when the air is pregnant with expectation as you find yourself in some unfamiliar territory. There is something exhilarating as you scan the vast scenic panorama before you, knowing you are seeing these for the first time. The joy does not vary – whether I have just arrived in some distant land with turban and robe-clad denizens, or at some sleepy town just south of Tacurong.
The names of the places I’ve been to this year are still ringing in my ears, and there is an almost primeval gut reaction whenever I hear of them…there is that knowledge that I’ve been there, and I have seen them with my own eyes. A nostalgia powerful as laughter sweeps over me, and I smile. There is a fondness and a longing for these places, people, scents, flavors, textures and moments that are now forever gone. It is odd, but you remember the small things that sum up your total experience - the taste of that Turkish coffee sipped in the middle of the desert - the way the wind had caressed your face as you looked down a ravine you have only taken time to look even if you've past it so many times - the sound of chatter in an unfamiliar language, but in the heart of it you actually understand.
There is a sadness too, for these places and the people that you meet may never cross your path again, but even so, you know that your life is enriched just because you saw and met them. They mark chapters in one’s life, a memory etched that one can return to. Traveling becomes a metaphor for the leave-taking and the arrivals of one’s life journey.
So, by way of a New Year’s resolution, I aim to travel more, explore more, and enjoy these exotic, and not so exotic scenes.
Here’s to kinder moments and fiercer love, to brief sadness and even shorter grief, to reminiscing, laughter, regrets and tears, to travels and adventures, to beaches and mountain tops, to the great city destinations and far-flung paradise, to sunrises and sunsets, to coffee, books, and movies, to family and friends, and most especially to God!
Happy New Year!!!!
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