i'm not sure, but i think that my travel photos might give a misleading impression about what travel represents to me. maybe i come across as more of a nature-loving person than i am. this is difficult to explain. there is that part of my personality that appreciates all of this stuff, but i think that my travel page is missing significant parts of what i would like travel to be. long walks seem to agree with my body chemistry, seem to relax me, but i also seem to long for different experiences. i think i've always associated travel mainly with how i'd relate to different people. i think of the stimulation of new surroundings and different customs and ways of thinking. i always seem to imagine talking, philosophy, the sharing of experiences, or that the unexpected will occur. i like the idea of experiencing the cafés, the food, the music, the textures, the fabric, the nightlife of different places, although i suppose that in remote 'natural' environments i don't feel intimidated. i am not sure if this is permanent, but i find myself becoming more detached about the idea of further travel. i am not sure that i will ever feel confident enough to cope with the experiences i thought i wanted, and i feel that motivation is slipping away, and all experience seems more and more irrelevant to me. i may try to travel more anyway, but i may not be capable of having more than an intellectual kind of appreciation of the experiences.
from Damage, by Josephine Hart:
...There is an internal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives. Those who are lucky enough to find it, ease like water over a stone, on to its fluid contours, and are home.
Some find it in the place of their birth; others may leave a seaside town, parched, and find themselves refreshed in the desert. There are those born in rolling countryside who are really only at ease in the intense and busy loneliness of the city.
For some, the search is for the imprint of another; a child or mother, a grandfather or a brother, a lover, a husband, a wife, or a foe.
We may go through our lives happy or unhappy, successful or unfulfilled, loved or unloved, without ever standing cold with the shock of recognition, without ever feeling the agony as the twisted iron in our soul unlocks itself, and we slip at last into place...