The Open Road
Original Publication 19/06/20
Photo courtesy of Paramount Vantage
I've been fantasising about travelling again. It's an old cliche that travelling leads to self-betterment and pulls you on a journey that invokes evolution and moulds you into a more confident and self-assured individual. I don't know about all of that, but what I do know is that once you have the bug, it never truly leaves you. It's always there, you feel it deep down in your heart, in your head, and in your soul. There's a simple, elegant and honest beauty to travelling that speaks to man's most basic obsession with adventure and discovery. As a species, we find difficulty comprehending the idea of nothing, so we live our lives in the pursuit of something.
I returned home from my two-year adventure in the great white north in March of last year. It was, for the most part, an incredible experience. The enticement of those august mountains and graceful tall trees have appealed to my artistic tendencies for a number of years and exploring that expansive country was, if nothing else, incredibly humbling. To be exposed to such natural beauty and grandeur is, ironically, beyond words. While Canada isn't necessarily steeped in years of anthropologic history, it boasts some of the most awe-inspiring landscapes that I've ever had the privilege of witnessing. The experiences I made and shared along the way are so profound that I will literally take them with me to my grave.
Upon my arrival, the lure and majesty of the open road took ahold of me quickly and without clemency. Travelling calls for improvisation and acceptance of unpredictability, but a country boasting the second-largest landmass in the world requires some prior research and, despite the overwhelming feeling of freedom I felt, I quickly became aware of just how unprepared I was for the road that lay ahead of me. Too often in my relatively short life, I have forgone restraint and preparation in the search of what I consider to be desirable, as many among us can attest to and, during those few months on the road, it would be fair to say I suffered. I was tired, lonely and frustrated, and I dabbled with the idea of returning home on more than one occasion.
Despite that, though, it is just that feeling of chaos that makes travelling so attractive to people like me. I look back now with fondness and with definite nostalgia. It's during those times that I felt the most exhilarated and alive and, with only my own person to rely on, I learnt the most about myself and just how resilient I could be.
Through these experiences and some (admittedly) self-incurred mistakes, I have been forced to learn the value of patience and, while I certainly left that country with a few regrets and a feeling of irritating hindsight, what will always resonate within me most assuredly is the lessons I learnt along the way, both internally and with regards to how I view the world around me. Its lessons such as these that I know will pay dividends when my feet (or wheels) find the open road once more.
I leave you with a quote from John Krakauer's, Into the Wild. "It should not be denied that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations. Absolute freedom and the road has always led West."
