travel dreams

It was Autumn. The air smelled so thick and alive, that I could feel the world evolving. Our 30 mile bike trip was nearly over. Beers in hand, we were three, spiralling across a vast Dutch landscape. The sky was big and blue and endless, as if inviting us in.
I was 19 years old. Just two months prior, my friend Lydia and I decided - on a whim - to take off from college to travel. Three weeks into our European adventure, we visited a farm, in a rural part of the Netherlands. Free of electricity and off the grid, it included a cluster of military bunkers, built by Nazis during WWII. After standing empty many years, the land was squatted by a group of idealistic young Dutch people seeking to transform. They aspired to build an Ecovillage. I was enraptured - in love with the potential.
It was the day of an epic bike ride when I experienced a moment that changed my life. Lydia and I went astride two rickety beasts of bicycles. Flying past reed-filled canals, endless sheep pasture, stands of oak and linden trees, we felt hot Autumn sun swirl with early Winter winds. We toured an "ice cream farm," meeting a local woman and her cows, pausing to jump on their trampoline. Twenty miles into our ride - in the picturesque walled city of Zutphen, we met Bram, from the farm. After a lovely day of encountering locals and trying out our bad Dutch (much to Bram's amusement), we raced back, against encroaching darkness.
Laughing, we sang with the joy of being alive. Suddenly, the world went silent and still. We were silhouettes against the backdrop of orange, red, and purple sky. Light beams skittered across a field of bare soil, patchworked by spiderwebs. Interwoven and stretching into the horizon, they sparkled with the first drops of evening dew. Each was a diamond universe, shining with magical radiance of setting sun. The world seemed more infinite than it had ever been before. Instantly, I felt a deep sense of peace - a singular moment of deep and instant knowing.
This was the moment when I realized - for the first time in my life - that anything is possible. Somehow, amidst chaos and pain and swirling randomness of life, possibility was the deep core of all things.
With the joyous sensibility of a child, Bram broke the silence. He sped off in the direction of what was soon be my home, shouting "Droom niet je hele leven. Maar leef je hele droom!"
Don't dream your whole life, but live your whole dream.
That was the day when I learned that anything is possible.