Travel is not to move around.
We do not travel to move around. We travel to be moved.
-- Pico Iyer
Beginning this time of travel I have been trying to put my finger on just what is the true draw to bouncing from place to place around Europe. There is a term popularised by the travel creed of which I count myself. The term Wanderlust, is defined as a very strong or irresistible impulse to travel. Yet this definition does not go deep enough to describe what is behind this desire. The quote above by Pico Iyre, struck a chord with me. Inhaling deeply with the realization someone had put words to the true desire I have been seeking to describe. To be moved, shifted from the state I am in by a moment, by a face, a vista, or even silence. That change in my heart, soul and mind which reorients me with the world in a small or profound way. I have felt that movement coming from nature or from people. It has come at the foot of a tree found on a hike just outside my town, gazing transfixed at the heart stopping water torrent of Igazú falls Brazil, and that movement has come watching the glee of a seven year old perfecting her diving technique off a boat into the clear blue water of Menorca. Not always have I been able to put words immediately to the change that has occurred. However sometimes the change and words come in a rush. Once I stood on the edge of Igazú Falls, the change was knowing my connection with water. I have always had affinity to water growing up, yet watching what seemed to be all the water I had ever seen cascade down the three hundred foot drop into a misty falls base, while birds circled a hundred feet below, I felt the flowing of water inside me. We are moved by our exchange with the world around us. This movement may come in a distant land where people smile and speak a language I am only just beginning to comprehend. Or it comes from the surroundings of my home town. It is my posture with the world that will open me to the possibility of being moved. If those self professed to have wanderlust were asked what is the reason behind the desire to travel, I believe they would agree they wish to be moved.
