Momentum Of Travel

My treasure isn’t a specific location or time. A part of me wishes it was, it’s good drama right? While jumping into the ocean in Cinque Terre, or sitting by the Grand Canyon, I could have had this revelation moment. Instead my treasure was gradual and simple, and yet more meaningful.

Why do we fall in love with travel? For some, it happens before we even go anywhere. To me, travel is an extension of one’s mind-set about life. I love holding onto life, experiencing it for all it’s worth, and settling into moments as they happen.

When we travel we consider, we observe, and we remember to enjoy. Travel is one of the greatest gifts life can give us.

During an 8-month Europe/UK/North America journey, I discovered my travel ‘jam’... somewhere between the Hoover Dam and Dallas. They have some nice straight roads for reflection-while-driving! Chuck in some haunting K.D Lang singing ‘Hallelujah’, chatty Route 66 diner’s where the local cop and the cooks’ 4 yr old breakfast together, scenery eerily out of Roswell, and I found myself set for some 'shifting' thought processes.

I started to pin this elusive ‘shift’ down later, over in Rhode Island. Here I first heard the phrase 'momentum of travel'. It tickled my fancy and encapsulated what had been germinating.

My sister and I were at a work & stay (repairing a loom…of course). Our hosts dinner guests told us about a local Native American word that basically means ‘momentum of travel’. It refers to that point you reach when travel gains a self-perpetuating momentum; one moment leads to the next, one host to the next, one road to the next…and so the gentle momentum takes over. That tourist-y ‘rush-&-plan-fit-it-all-in’ approach slides away.

I completely understand the ‘fit-it-all-in’ approach. I have done it before, and will again (I am not one of those people who can choose between the Coliseum and the Vatican…must see both!). But I also know that it will be a conscious decision when I choose to have a frantic ‘tourist’ moment, and my decision to slip into those momentum moments has, and will continue to, increase. It is no longer all so crucial. I still want to see certain things, but if I had to choose I would prefer to see less and experience more.

Of course, let’s face it, I would much rather have my cake and eat it too. I would love for my personal momentum of travel to both take me those places I want to see, and also allow me the time and mental/life space to truly revel in the experience as well.