To travelling with love!

Photography: Carl Joyce; Herb Wise.

All rights reserved!

The origins of the modern word travel go back to around 13th century and the Anglo-French term travail, which was referred to arduous work, labour, painful effort, torture. Robert Cole (2009) looks for its roots in Latin: tripalis (an instrument of torture having tri (three) stakes).
As it seems, back in the days travelling was a method of torment and one was punished by sending them to travel (travellers). Based on the indigenous meaning of the verb, things haven't changed much in terms of what a nightmare travelling could be today. Yet, for some, the initial idea of the word appears in opposition to the pleasure obtained when "on the move".

Someone said once that the great affair is to move and I, personally, believe it is, indeed! There isn't anything more tranquillising to the mind than the sweet fatigue that engulfs you when crossing through a green countryside on a train at sunset;

Or the quiet, ticklish anxiety when awaiting that voice announcing the gate number of your flight; 

or the feeling of nostalgia and impatience in your chest when catching a glimpse of an airplane trail in the sky;

or the sense of inner relief when admire the muffled wail of the ginormous, ever-living city from a distance.

Distance.
So large. So infinite. So erratic.
Miles, meters and kilometres drawing distance.
Distance.
Created by waves,

railroads, 

crossroads,

low roads, 

and highroads. 

Distance.
Between countries, cities and people.
Many people. Different people.

Singing people,

dancing people, 


celebrating people, 

working people,

tired people,

and those who smile,

try, 

or simply wait. 


Travelling is the ability to adapt. To chameleonize. To develop. And grow.
To know the differences and fascinate the contrasts. To experiment. And experience the uncertainty. The danger. The past.

And the future.

Travelling is about the meetings. The spontaneous, unexpected, last-minute meetings. Those meetings that give you the chills when you drift away while on your lunch break in the grey, dull office.
Those meetings that you are reminded of every time you hear a song, or detect a scent lingering with the wind.
Those meetings, the memories of which fill the corners of your eyes while heading home on the bus from work.
Those meetings that scar you for e-v-e-r...

Meetings with places,

 

species,

and long lost items with their own past.

Meetings with destinies,

stories,

and other versions of the "facts" as we know it.

Despondent meetings,

 breathtaking meetings...

but most of all, travelling is about THOSE meetings, smily, sweaty, sunny, sleepless meetings when days and nights merge into one same temporal dimension and where the only rules to abide by are the rules of youth,

passion, peace and love. 

Love for life. Love for love. Love for the unknown. Love for travelling. And the torture that comes with it.


***

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." 
Mark Twain