The World Always Goes on.
Notes on the Process:
I have found, so far, that traveling solo is both a magnifying glass and a zoom out tool. With it, I am face to face with my shortcomings, my misjudgments, my fears, my reactions. I have already been shown parts of myself that I hadn’t known existed, both positive and negative. On the other end of that is the understanding of how little I know, of how vast the world is, and how small I am in the face of it. Travel is a mirror to life in the simplest sense. Things go wrong, you must pivot. Nothing is the same as how you imagine it and if you cling too tightly to the idea of a place, you miss out on allowing the journey to open you, you miss out on the present moment, on the process.
The process includes fear, it includes loneliness, it includes overwhelm. But the beauty exists in this process, it is not separate from it. I can be filled to the brim with awe and wonder one moment, touched by the kindness of a stranger, struck with inspiration while learning about another culture, and then be floundering in unfamiliarity, polarized from my self and from the world.
The influencers don’t tell you. It is possible to be grateful, joyful, inspired, loving, overwhelmed, sad, frustrated, lost all at once. In fact, it is more than possible, it is entirely real. The arrows of Mara continue to dart towards you even as you live your dreams. Mara is a demon in Buddhism that I learned about at a retreat that I attended in Bozeman. I conceptualize Mara as our own ego or subconscious. We are hit with the first arrow, which is the initial feeling, such as anger, frustration, impatience, and the second arrow is that voice in our head that tells us to be shameful of the initial reaction. Feeling this sense of longing for a familiar face or atmosphere, I grew frustrated with myself. As I looked up at an astonishing snow capped volcano jutting into the sky, the breeze from the lakeside moved through my hair, Chilean folk music surrounded me and I thought, “How could I possibly long for anything right now, with this as my reality?” I should not. I should not. I should not. And, yet, I do. This is part of the process, it is all one in the same complex, beautiful, emotional, chaotic, exhilarating, terrifying web of life.
Notes on Relearning:
When talking to a friend a few years ago, they told me that for them it is always important to have an intention while traveling as with everything else. From that point on, I decided that this is important to me, too.
It is easy to lose sight of this intention if I do not reconnect to it often. Upon arriving to Pucón, Chile’s adventure capital, and to my hostel packed with backpackers doing all of the things, I got sucked into it all again. The FearOfMissingOut game, the “more more more” game.” Instead of considering my intention and authentic needs, I have been falling into my shadow telling me, “you aren’t doing enough if you don’t do it all while you’re here.”
I have been so absorbed in deciding what to do next that I have forgotten the point. Presence. I had the chance to relearn this today. Miscommunication between the tour company and I made for an early morning of waiting around for a tour van that never came. Of course, I was frustrated. I had gotten up at 4am to summit a volcano, damnit!
Awake before the sun, I wandered the empty streets of a sleepy Pucón, I stumbled upon a local biathlon race where a group of people gathered on the beach as the lush green hills radiated in flecks of morning light. I sat on a bench, listened to the birds, breathed deeply. Something in me said, “perhaps, there is something else meant for me today.” Maybe that something occurred right there and then. That silence, that sharpness of the day just as the sun breaks through. That moment was teaching me patience, reconnecting me to my intention. To be present, to be okay with uncertainty, to trust myself, to hear and tell stories, to listen, listen, listen to my heart, to the world, to the unassuming vibration of the universe.
I was reminded of the Mary Oliver poem, Wild Geese, as I sat there.
“You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about your despair. I’ll tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on.”
The world always goes on. The feeling always passes. This moment is the only one that exists and it is my greatest teacher.
