Laced In Grace

The gorgeous double French doors perfectly below the Sarabeth’s sign welcomed me warmly with a rush of heated air con and the smell of fresh coffee. The café was quiet on the icy New York morning but was a welcomed change with soft music and delicious smells, contrasting largely to the loud traffic and cutting wind just outside the doors. What lead me here? My heart was ready for that of the unplanned… that of which I wouldn’t read across the glossy pages of a travel guide… or in an enchanting episode of Gossip Girl, so I headed out to find the closet subway station.
Two quarters where pushed abruptly back to me through the steel compartment as a paper ticket shot out to my right. I hastily gathered my things, shoved the change in my pocket and jumped out of the line. “How did I get here?” I thought. The long line behind me screamed in itself ‘Please note: we’ve been waiting longer then 4 seconds for her to get her ticket… defiantly a tourist here.’ If my super power dreams of becoming invisible could’ve kicked in right then I would have been eternally grateful, but I kept my head down, slipped my ticket into the gate and sat beneath the mosaic Museum of Natural History/81st St sign waiting for my downtown train to arrive. The pre recorded women’s voice echoed through the concrete tunnels underneath the city, “This is Brooklyn bound, local train.” I let her ricochet through my mind as I sat in the cool air, waiting. The feat of getting myself onto the subway was found to be anything but joyous, though it was a leap through dirty sliding doors towards my last hope of getting downtown before the shopaholics emerged in the thousands, so I braved it.
If our lives are full of ‘how did I get here’ moments, appose to walking the same roads and taking the same pictures as those who’ve gone before us, we will find our selves immersed in a way of living that is not what we refer to as sightseeing or holidaying, but travel. Adventure. What makes a trip so incredible is the unmatchable thrill of knowing our plans could change at any moment. Experiencing life without ‘how did I get here’ moments, will accelerate you into a spiral of living without spontaneity or true, raw adventure. Allow yourself to take in the very essence of each place and you'll find yourself soon to be rich in knowledge and priceless memories. Notice the ground beneath your feet in hope of keep your heart open to infectious desire to wander.