The Idea:
When we re-form the world in which we live to one of terrible sameness,
it is no wonder we always ache to travel somewhere else.
When I was young, there was
nothing I wanted to do more than travel around the world. I didn't want
to see cities, though. I wanted to visit wilderness, and especially
places where man lived in peace with wilderness.
Since then, I've done a lot of traveling, and I have a lot of open
invitations to visit and stay with people -- many from people who only
know me from my blog. I've always enjoyed traveling -- the sheer
movement, the discovery of someplace new, learning new things and
meeting new people. But a strange thing has happened recently -- I've
lost my wanderlust. I still enjoy
traveling, but if I couldn't I wouldn't miss it, and if I had so much
wealth I could travel anywhere (or wouldn't have to travel at all,
ever), I would travel rarely, and then only to see people I love or
think I would love if I met them. I guess that means I'm home, that
I've found my place.
I'm still trying to understand this. A big part of it is this blog.
Once you've found your audience as a blogger it's pretty hard to feel
lonely -- this remarkable technology has allowed me to 'meet' and
converse with thousands of people I wouldn't have met otherwise --
kindred spirits, people with diverse lives and passions and ways of
thinking. Although I don't pretend the experience is as rich as making
a new friend in person, the fact that online communities are
self-selecting means you get past mere acquaintanceship faster, and
don't have to put up with people who are only there because they have
to be, or because they want something from you, the way you do in
'real' life.
When I talk to someone who's spent their whole life in some exotic
place I've never visited I learn much more from their deep knowledge of
that place and what happens there, than I could ever hope to learn from
a quick visit there, what I described in my recent poem as 'merely
skimming across the surface' of that place, not really a part of it at
all, not really there.
Two recent travelogues have really brought this home to me. The first
was one about bicycling vacations in the Alps. These, I was told, are
brilliantly organized for you: Your itinerary is scheduled so the
distance you must cover is exhilarating without being exhausting.
Reservations are made at both your lunch restaurant and
dinner/overnight stop locations, and you can even have your bags sent
ahead so they will be waiting for you. Huge elevators inside mountains
spare you the most onerous uphill cycling. The scenery, of course, is
ever-changing and astonishing. And your vacation is almost entirely
outdoors, in fresh air, getting exercise. A vacation that's good for you.
If I were to have
to go on a vacation, this is what I would choose. But the reason has
almost nothing to do with what I've just described. What attracts me to
it most is the camaraderie of others, the chance to meet and talk in
the evenings over a beer with others who just happen to have chosen
this same destination. And why do I need to fly to Switzerland to do
that when I can have a Skype conversation (and a virtual Klosterbräu)
with someone in Switzerland anytime, someone who, by reading his/her blog, I know would probably be more interesting to talk to than the people I meet serendipitously in the Gasthaus?
The other travelogue was Michael Palin's PBS journal from his trip to
Chile -- unbelievably rugged scenery, featuring a train ride across the
Atacama desert (which has never seen rain) and the Altiplano (so high
that you can faint from lack of oxygen, which unfortunately the train
operators can no longer afford to provide), where altitude sickness is
still treated the traditional way -- with coca leaf tea. Fascinating
and stunning to watch, but why would you want to go there, unless you
could actually speak the language and stay with the locals?
But perhaps the real reason I no longer have the itch to travel is that my home, my place
is always changing, always mysterious. The wildlife on the pond and by
the bird-feeder is always in flux. The night sounds change, from the
spring peepers to the duck-mimicking wood frogs to the bullfrogs and
owls and coyotes. Every square foot of wildland is its own ecosystem,
with a hundred plants and creatures you can't see until you get close,
each changing with the seasons. Especially at this time of year, there
is new life everywhere, from the purple wildflowers growing where the
nocturnal skunks have dug up the grass to rid the soil of the
non-native Japanese beetle grubs, to the just-hatched fuzzy yellow
goslings. And if I could ever exhaust my learning and discoveries about
this myriad of life, I could simply buy a microscope and, zooming in
still closer, discover yet another, even stranger wilderness hidden
below the threshold of our feeble human vision.
I wonder whether the hunger of so many people to travel stems from the
lack of biodiversity where they live -- the terrible sameness of life
and terrain, the absence of mystery. I suspect that even for many as
lucky as I to live in a place with a profusion of undiscovered life,
their sensibilities and imaginations have been so stunted that they
cannot see it.
We are just like the mad scientists and philosophers with their space
probes and SETI projects desperately seeking intelligent life elsewhere
in the universe, when all along it is all around us, offering us
important lessons we can no longer hear. Showing us, in vain, the way
home.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
