What is My Why?
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re still in Provence. I’ve made friends with a cheese guy, and a strawberry lady, and a pastry lady. I believe that means I’m putting down roots.
What is My Why?
Much travel writing is about ‘finding oneself.’ This might be because many travel writers (and nowadays, TikTokers) are young people, or young-ish. Digital nomads definitely skew young. Lee and I are an anomaly—solidly middle-aged nomads who are still working, as well as traveling full time.
But I don’t think of myself as a travel writer. I’m a writer who happens to travel a lot. I’m definitely not the kind of travel writer who is trying to ‘find myself.’ I’m not lost; I found myself years ago. Raising children kind of forces the issue, in my opinion, at least if you’re trying to raise them thoughtfully and with intention. My self-finding days are long past, gone the way of my diaper bag, or my dissertation.
Which begs the question: if I’m not trying to find myself, what am I looking for? What is my why?
I think that all this time, I’ve been traveling to find the rest of the world.
I used to look for the rest of the world in the news, and I still do. I’ve always been a news junkie, especially international news. My second major in college was international studies. I’m endlessly curious about the rest of the world—who are they? What do their days look like? What do they eat, read, like, feel, do? Who are those other people, out there in the rest of the world?
What I’ve learned, having now seen a small sampling of the ‘rest of the world,’ is that there is no ‘rest of the world.’ As Lee likes to say, there is no us or them: we’re all on the same team. The rest of the world is just people like us, with faces and names and unique life stories.
A few days ago, because I’m still a news junkie, I read an article about an increase in dangerous elephant-human interactions in the mountains of Tamil Nadu (the Western Ghats). The article came to life as I read it, and I understood, concretely, why and how it’s difficult to balance the needs of 1.4 billion people (the population of India) with the needs of revered and valued wildlife. In January, Lee and I stood next to a twisty country road in those very mountains and watched a wild tusker wandering over the next hill. It was breathtaking and beautiful, but also? We were one of about a dozen cars, all pulled over to gawk and snarl traffic. I stepped carefully, to avoid the ubiquitous roadside garbage.
That night, like each night of our eleven-day road trip in southern India, we stayed in a comfortable hotel, while our driver slept in the car (the same driver who had pulled over in a hurry so Princess could see the elephant). The day after we departed, he was beginning a twenty-seven day tour with another couple. Twenty-seven nights, sleeping in the car, which he doesn’t own. He hopes to be able to buy a car in five years or so.
I don’t know the answer to that problem—how to keep elephants from attacking humans, and vice versa. I don’t know the answer to poverty so deep that a man who is gainfully employed, working hard and doing a good job, has to sleep in a car he doesn’t own. I don’t know the answer to any significant problem, really, especially the big awful problems that we read about in the news. I rant and I get upset and I am bothered by many, many, many things that I see in the headlines, and also in the world.
But—and I’ve only recently realized this about myself—I think this is the why of my peripatetic life: nowadays, when I read the news, I see real people behind the headlines. Faces, names, moments, smiles, small unprompted kindnesses extended in my direction. I read the news and I think of Anoop, or Mula, or Bunthy, or Lin, or Gusti and his wife, whose name is also Gusti.
I haven’t been to every country or seen all the places, and I know there are some I’ll never get to, but something has finally clicked for me: the people I have met are no different from the ones I haven’t met yet.
Maybe that’s the truth I’ve been looking for.
Take care,
Lisa
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