Middle of Trip Musings

After departing from Old Hall we had just under two weeks to fill before our flight to India. This period also contained an important milestone, with November 1 marking six months since we started traveling. As we reached the “halfway point” of our planned year, we were ready to take a good long rest in order to fully relax, de-stress, and find our center. Remembering how restorative our short stay at Bamford Quaker Community had been about a month before, we decided to return again for a longer stay. It was far out of the way from our path to London, but as we had already done so much zigzagging across the UK, we figured: what’s another 4 hour bus ride? Our time at Bamford gave us ample time for reading, reflection, and silent contemplation in Quaker worship. We also enjoyed conversations with our hosts and other visitors. It was a good time to look back, look ahead, and think about our journey.

After our stay at Bamford, we next spent a few days in London before flying to India to begin the psychological “second half” of our trip. For our 4 days in London, we stayed with a delightful young couple named Vicky and Tim in their urban flat. We connected with them through a Quaker network called London Young Friends. We attended worship at the Westminster Meeting right in the heart of London, and shared lots of laughter and lively conversation with our hosts. Besides that we were total fails at sightseeing in London, but we did do our final chores and shopping to get ready for India. Anyway here are our musings about the first half of our trip.

Julia

As we reflect on our own journey of traveling, I read three books at Bamford that made me think more about the idea of “journey”. First was No Destination, a man named Satish Kumar’s account of his 8,000 mile walk for peace in the 1970s. He and his friend began in their home country of India and passed through the 4 major nuclear powers (Russia, France, UK, USA) in support of disarmament. They carried no money, no weapons, ate no meat, and traveled only on foot, relying on the hospitality of strangers as they tried to live their message of Gandhian peace. They faced lots of official scrutiny and political harassment and were thrown in a nasty French prison for a while.

Being at Bamford reminded me of this story’s parallels with Quaker social action. Paging through one of the newsletters in the kitchen, I read an article about a local British Friend who was arrested last January for breaking into a fighter jet factory in order to disarm planes that would be used in Saudi Arabia’s bombing of Yemeni civilians. Learning about examples such as these made me appreciate the power of people living their convictions. They not only take action in a physical sense but also simultaneously embody the spirit of love and peace that they want to see in the world. It all made me think: Would I have such courage to endure discomfort for what I believe?

I also resonated with Satish Kumar’s more recent book Earth Pilgrim, written 30 years after No Destination. His two books share the same basic values at their core, but Earth Pilgrim pulls a greater focus on ecology into its message about our modern day challenges. Kumar describes how we can help bring society and nature back to harmony by acting as “pilgrims” rather than “tourists” on the planet. That is, seeing earth not as a place to plunder for our own gratification and monetary wealth, but as a sacred home. A place to live with peace, accountability, rootedness, diversity, kinship with the natural world, knowledge of our interrelatedness, and joy.

Of course this is a vision shared by many people, but what I found especially memorable was the mindset with which Kumar approaches things. His lifelong experience with meditation, starting with his young years as a Jain monk, helped him develop an inner stability, equanimity, and non-attachment to the success or outcome of his actions. I thought about this in terms of my own overwhelmingly emotional reactions to the world. When activism opportunities arose back at home I would always be having internal debates such as this: “I should go to this upcoming tar sands pipeline hearing.” “Ooh, but it would be so much more pleasant to go for a bike ride and go to the sauna and cook dinner. I don’t want to face all that darkness and negativity that always shakes me for days afterwards. Or travel through all those ugly urban traffic jams to get to the hearing.” Unpleasantness has an oversized emotional weight for me that I wish it wouldn’t. Also, I often feel upset and frustrated, thinking: “why can’t people wake up and see things the way I and the people I admire do? We as humans could do so much to make things right, if only we put our minds and hearts to it!” But Satish Kumar’s message was very helpful -- to live with integrity, with our eyes wide open, and engage deeply in the world. And especially memorable for me, to remove our egos from our work, not fear sorrow and pain, and experience the joy and fulfillment that these journeys bring. Of course that is easier said than done but is seems like a wonderful mindset.

Satish Kumar’s vision for a better world had many similarities with another book we have been reading, Wendell Berry’s What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth. In this collection of essays, Berry describes his vision for an authentic and enduring economy that is respectful of humanity and the natural world. Today’s “economy” is wrong at its core: it is built on greed, exploitation, hidden costs, producing consumer goods as quickly and cheaply as possible, and the crazy concept of endless growth. Instead, he proposes that our escalating troubles can’t be solved by technical or financial solutions but by reevaluating our culture and our values. His vision is for an economy that is local, community-oriented, small scale, diverse, and creative. An economy that is based on the principles of land stewardship, frugality, self-sufficiency, quality craftsmanship, and deep care. Yes! Sign me up!

I contemplated all of this in the silence of Quaker worship. I admire Kumar’s and Berry’s ability to look deep into what is happening and why. I realized I have not been thinking much about such questions lately. With the excitement of travel it is so easy to get caught up in all the thoughts of “My life, my travels, my happiness, my troubles, my future, my pleasure, my anxiety” to the exclusion of all else. Reading these books, however, brought me back into a wider awareness of the world. In addition to their inspiring messages of deep hope, these books were also a reminder that the planet is in pain.

During our travels we have largely been isolated from these realities. We have by and large spent our time “away” from it all, in places of peace, beauty, and wholeness: small organic farms, mountain wilderness, nature reserves, and communities of like-minded people. Out of sight and often out of mind is the simultaneous reality of the world: desperate poverty, fossil fuel extraction, displaced people, lost species, factory farms, shopping malls, garbage dumps, exploited workers, ruined topsoil, war profiteering, the destruction of indigenous cultures. Of course these two worlds are not separate and they interact on many levels. But as we have spent so much time in non-representative “bubbles,” I found myself feeling a bit disconnected from the gravity and urgency of the world today.

I am not trying to say that we should instead be overwhelmed with depression at the vastness of destruction, but that we should remember. Remember to take a step back sometimes and see the context in which we are living. Reading these books helped remind me why we want to live the way we do. Why we are trying to explore more local, ecological, and community-oriented lifestyles through our travels. As we travel, we are exploring possibilities for our personal paths in the world. But at the same time, let us also think about the way our personal journey may be part of the broader journey of the world around us.

Of course I do not mean to say that the only thing that gives form and substance to our journey is the negative, the desire to abolish wrongs. Even more powerfully it is the joy. Our travels have given us many tastes of what a more harmonious world might look and feel like: The warmth of family and friends gathered to help herd cows up a mountain. A group meditation on the spirit of nature. The sweet burst of a tomato fresh off the vine. The taste of water from a pristine mountain stream. The sweaty satisfaction of weeding a row of vegetables. The embrace of a loving community singing around a bonfire. The vitality of thousands of birds nesting in the cliffs. Quiet places where we can hear the wind rustling in the leaves. Wholesome food nourishing our body and soul. That is the life we want to live, the world we want to live in!

There are lots of questions that travel has made me ask myself. I can congratulate myself all I want for believing in messages like those of Kumar and Berry, but when it comes down to it, what will I actually do about it all? Will I have the integrity and motivation to actually enact all that I dream and philosophize about? Will I really do something like help facilitate a local food movement once I get home, or will I get preoccupied and lazy? Sometimes I have doubts about my own courage, energy, and determination. Seeing how hard our host Nicholas worked at his Swiss dairy farm made me think: what motivates me enough to work really hard on it? And learning about the history of the intentional communities we visited made me think: would I have the courage to dive into an uncertain endeavor with such determination? Lots of questions!

Colby

These last six months have been wild. You hear and read the stories of all sorts of long adventures that people have taken and you research and prepare but you only think you are ready. Like with many things in life you can never truly understand until you have experienced it yourself. This trip, this adventure, has been so much more than I ever could have imagined. When I would see posts on Facebook about some grand adventure in some far off place and be so excited about that being me in the near future I was missing out on the biggest part of long term travel. Because for me the best, most inspiring or enlightening moments have been the little things. The random encounters or conversations, the last minute decision to try out an unknown path, the daily chores of living out of a backpack. These things have also caused the most angst and taken what feels like way too much of our valuable, expensive, and limited time in a place. All the basic day to day chores that you barely have to think about at home become an ordeal that spans several days. Something as simple as preparing a meal means you also have to familiarize yourself with yet another kitchen at least every two weeks. Your habits and routines are totally disrupted which is unsettling but also so valuable. I tend to enjoy my routines as many people do, in my experience. I like the simplicity of not needing to think about so many decisions because I can just follow my habits. However, before the trip I also regularly made an effort to mix things up by sitting in a different chair every day or taking a different route to work. Along those lines I like how traveling takes that to an extreme and gives me the space to make new habits and maybe better ones. Moving around Switzerland for such a long time gave me many repetitions of adjusting to a new place and rhythm. This also gave me experience in what worked better or worse and highlighted habits that I enjoy and value versus tendencies that are not serving me well. It was also amazing how quickly we would adjust to a place and usually by day 4 we would be calling it home. Also as the time went on we would often pass through an area we had explored earlier on the trip and seeing things like the benches we had sat on weeks before to wait for the bus would bring back all sorts of memories and a familiarity.

We very intentionally decided to do the trip at a slow pace, preferring to experience a few places to a greater depth rather than cruise over the surface of many places. I remain very glad for this choice, although it didn’t remove many of the energy draining components of being constantly mobile. So many days it was a great struggle to find the energy to venture forth on an “outing.” And so many days we would opt for something simple and nearby but then those days would also make some of my favorite memories. One of the great joys of a slow pace was being able to take a walk to some epic vista or tranquil scene and then just sit and think or take a nap. Or one day we decided to just wander the streets of this tiny little town and nothing notable happened and yet it was a spectacular exploration. That has been one of the challenges of writing the blog (well Julia has been doing most of the writing, I help edit), what do we talk about? So much of the experience is in all the little insignificant moments that lose their energy when we put it in writing. So like so many before us we have mostly written about the “cool” outings of which we have had many and yes they have been cool. But they only just tease at the surface of all that comes from our days. It is quite an experience when we have looked back at earlier blog posts or photos and it feels unreal and so far away and we remind each other “we were really there.”

It is interesting how our priorities and energies ebb and flow throughout the trip. We have been attempting to not over plan things and have partially succeeded. We generally had an outline of where we would be when laid out well in advance but usually decided what outings we wanted to do as we went. This was done with the intention of giving us flexibility to make each place into the experience that felt right for where we were in the saga of our trip at the time. It unfortunately also meant some missed events and lots of evenings spent researching the next day.

I started the trip on a mission to answer the meaning of life… well at least the meaning of my life. It was helpful to use that question as I reflected on the experiences and realizations along the trip. I did however eventually realize that I was being too narrowly focused and was missing out on all sorts of other gains and realities. Later in the trip I continued to be mindful of relating things to my future but relaxed my intensity to allow in other as yet unknown knowledge that this trip might bring to me.

In addition to our undulating energy the structure of the trip itself has shifted through different phases of the trip. We started with the whirlwind rush of the epic extremes of Iceland. That was followed by bouncing between family and farms in Switzerland with a large helping of mountain hiking mixed in. Then there was a quick interlude with Julia’s relatives in Germany before onward to the UK. We had initially bought flights to London but once we actually thought about it we realized that neither of us really likes cities and weren’t really wanting to go to London so we got a new flight directly to Scotland. First off we had a good month of wilderness self reflection and discovery which was followed with experimenting with intentional community life. There was also some disillusionment with traveling and more family time in between. What a roller coaster it has been.

There have been so many glorious moments big and small and plenty of unpleasantness and grinding to go along with it. I think one of the big challenges of such a long trip has been being able to find the time and space to recharge our batteries particularly since Julia and I recharge in different ways. When you are packing everything up and moving to an unfamiliar place every couple days or weeks there is never an opportunity to truly relax. You start to long for the simplest of comforts associated with a familiar place, like having our own kitchen. These feelings have also been a great treasure because they have helped me to find clarity about what is important. Helped to identify what things bring true happiness and joy versus the perceived wants that only clutter life. There has also been ample time on the trip to experiment and dream. I have been able to start to form a plan for the future only to have some new experience radically change what possible path I see myself on. I have been challenged in how I do things or what my priorities are and this has caused me to find ways to try and be better, do better and also solidified my resolve around methods that I do prefer. Some of the most eye opening things have been trying something a new way that I had not considered before but then having that open my eyes to how I value and prefer my current method that I had taken for granted before.

Through all that this trip has been I am so appreciative of all the gifts of my life up to now and I am so excited for what the future holds and getting to share it all with my soul mate Julia.

Us

The thread tying all of these musings together are the questions we began the trip by asking. How do we want to live our lives? What kind of place do we want to live in? With whom? What do we want our role to be? In short, all of those classic meaning of life questions. This search is not a hard and fast “goal” of the trip, just a mindset with which to approach experiences and to reflect on the inspirations and ideas they teach us. Going through so many experiences together has really spurred us to dream about our shared future, and helped us realize that we share a lot in common. We’ve mentioned most of these particular inspirations already in the blog posts (community living, nature, tiny house, local food, self sufficiency). One of the great parts of travel is how it broadens your dreams, showing you how there are more diverse possibilities for life than you might have imagined! Our slower paced travels have allowed us not just to observe, but also to sample what life might be like in many different situations.

Of course there are also the personal challenges that travel forces you to face. The trip has also helped us realize our two main sources of conflict. 1: How much extra are we willing to pay to reduce the risk of things going wrong, or to have more lovely and comfortable amenities and experiences? Julia is much more risk averse and really believes “you get what you pay for.” She is happy to pay more for what in the end seems to be higher value. Sometimes excessively so, in Colby’s mind. But Julia thinks, Why spend so much money to get to a place only to skimp on things you’d like to do there? Another example is our plane tickets to India. Julia was all ready to spend $100 more per ticket to have a direct flight as opposed to a super short 1 hour layover in Abu Dhabi that we might miss. However, Colby points out that constantly paying more to reduce the possibility of inconvenience adds up a lot over time, so we went for the layover (which turned out just fine). 2. Julia is very indecisive and waffles back and forth trying to make the absolute best decision possible, which can be very time consuming when at some point we just need to make a decision. Colby gets frustrated how Julia get flustered trying to weigh all the pros and cons to death and still half the time feels like we’ve made the wrong decision. Anyway, almost all of our conflicts seem to fall into one of these two categories. However, constantly being forced to work through differences has helped us figure out ways to balance our different priorities. Before traveling together, we had been dating for a year and a half and Julia had spent the summer living in Finland, MN with Colby but we had never been together literally 24/7 or had to make many important decisions together. We weren’t sure how it would go!

But despite all the stresses of travel we have not yet had the desire to strangle each other, and even still really like each other! However, through both the fun and challenging times we have learned a lot about each other and how we work as a couple. Being almost totally opposite in many day-to-day regards means we complement each other nicely. Colby holds together well in high-stress, high-stimulation circumstances; while Julia thrives in long, slow, quiet periods of contemplation or conversation. Colby keeps all of our gear and budget organized while Julia researches cool places to go and things to do. We both recharge our internal batteries differently as well: Colby by watching movies or surfing the Internet, Julia by hanging out in community common areas and socializing with our hosts. We were concerned about how differently we like to spend our time, but we have come to accept that we are just different people. However, when we are back home and no longer have shared travel pulling us together we will make an effort to share activities we both like, such as hiking, camping, cooking, gardening, music and massages.

To wrap up, our first six months of travel have been an absolutely eye opening experience. Sometimes during the ample boring moments and logistical pains you wonder “what is this all for?” But somehow looking back, all the experiences have cumulatively gathered together into a many-sided gem of memories. Sometimes we enjoy just gazing at Colby’s computer screensaver of rotating trip photos. Wow! It is fun to let your mind cascade and flicker around all the places we’ve been, all the people we’ve met. I’m sure their value will only ripen with time and distance as we continue to realize the many ways we have been affected by our experiences. Here’s to another 6 months!