“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” -Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring
There’s no knowing! Travel allures us for this very reason. You cast yourself into the unknown, and anything becomes possible. We don’t know what we don’t know. Knowledge of the brand new can only come from an element of surprise; you never can tell just where that knowledge will come from. But it comes, inevitably, when you experience life in brand new places among brand new acquaintances. The novelty forces one to grow and learn, in the mind as well as the soul.
Travel has always been a part of our lives. As a child, my family drove the long road from Arkansas to California nearly every year. The Southwest captured my imagination, especially the dry, vast landscapes of Arizona and New Mexico. The lands of the Navajo enchanted the ancient cliffs. I remember gathering up my cassette tapes in the early days, my CDs in the latter, and allowing the music to carry me away as I watched the ever changing view from my seat in the middle row of our minivan. To this day, one of my all time favorite pastimes is to take a road trip, turn up the music, and sip a frappuccino!
Elizabeth grew up in Ukraine. Her travels in childhood included regular visits to the Black Sea, exploring Crimea, wandering the historical city of Lviv. It was in Lviv where we met in person for the first time. It was on an adventure when our two stories intersected.
Travel is a manifestation, a branch, of the art of discovery. While we hold travel in high esteem, it is only one of many ways to explore. We asked ourselves if we would prefer to travel full time, and strongly considered it. What if we could have a never-ending holiday? But in the end, we arrived at the decision that there is something far greater at the core.
What we’re really after is freedom. The freedom to do something meaningful. Travel broadens perspective. It illuminates new ways of life. It enlightens. At the core, though, that which sticks with us is something we discover within ourselves. One does not need to travel to discover it, though travel can catalyze the process. What we’re truly after is a rhythm of life which consists in structuring our days with a balance of thoughts and actions done for the sake of joy in themselves.
The author of Hebrews describes this call within the human heart: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. He went out, not knowing where he was going.”
I think too often we know exactly where we are going, all the time. But I think, at certain times, we feel a call to explore, to grow, to ascend. Not knowing where we are going allows us to wander into a new intersection, a new hall with open doors we never knew existed. If the meek will inherit the earth, do we know enough of the earth to recognize that inheritance?
In Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey, that call to adventure is the beginning of everything. It is the adventure that changes us from the inside out. That which cannot be fully explained rationally can be experienced fully through transformation. The distances, places, and means may differ, but the effect is the same. The world is a wonder to be discovered. In that discovery, we wish here to express those thoughts and feelings evoked along the way.