Tag Archives: home made

February 9, 2012

Why travel? For the homesickness maybe.

By Sami

I’m going to end up getting all philosophical in this one due to the lack of work caused by excessive amounts of snow. Give me free time and most often one of these things will happen; mind numbing time wasting on the web or philosophical conversations with myself about anything. I’ve brought up the topic of travel in another post but today was a good reiteration on the reasons why. A long wonderful conversation with a good friend via Skype and time making ravioli and dinner conversation with my hosts spurred the topic again… And now I’m not sure where to start.

I guess I’ll start with some sort of allegory from childhood. When I was little I was in love hate relationship with routine (really how much has changed?) and cereal was my morning’s milestone. A bowl of Shredded Wheat signified the beginning of a new day, add honey and lord it was going to be an amazing day! That aside I had run into a problem- I firmly believed that my family was the only family in the whole world that ate cereal for breakfast. I thought the boxes lining the whole grocery isle were made particularly for us. Which created a bit of a problem in the idea of going to a friends house in the morning- they wouldn’t have cereal and my morning routine would be crushed then who knows what would happen to the day? Finally came the day when my parents plopped my sisters and I at a friends house in the morning and lo in behold for breakfast we didn’t have broccoli- we had cereal. I probably had the equivalent of a heart attack for a five year old, but that day made all the rest a little less intimidating. That’s why travel. You’ll encounter houses with better cereal, one’s with worse, and all places you’ll have friends. I’ll stop before I turn this into one overly complicated metaphor.

But I also have the bad tendency to use travel as a fleeing escape. Any time there was an imbalance or negativity in Prescott I’d start looking for a way to get out of there as fast as possible. Most anybody who travels or moves much could tell you that those imbalances will travel with you because it’s not the place causing it. The thing causing it is your guaranteed travel companion- you. I can’t say that the urge to flee wasn’t part of my motivation behind leaving but thankfully I am able to say that this time I’m facing myself. And it’s surprising how much better that makes traveling. Yesterday I passed the marker for the longest time I’ve ever been away from my hometown. I was a bit intimidated by the thought of leaving my nest for so long, afraid that somehow in my absence everything connecting me to it would just disappear. To be honest the thought of being forgotten and forgetting is probably what scares me most about travel. Homesickness is one of those things that seems to diminish in strength when acknowledged, like the Boogyman just homesickness won’t kill you. Once I accepted that I might be a liiiiitttle bit homesick I started to realize really how connected I still am to Prescott, but not through the problems. There are still some problems and negativity taking up too much space in my pack waiting to vacate and it’s time will come. I’m incredibly blessed to have so many wonderful people at home keeping contact through Facebook, email, Skype etc. Italy celebrated my milestone with me with a three hour hike and the most Arizona-esque sunset I’ve seen here yet bringing love and laughter with it from 6,000 miles away. I miss so many of you and send love and positivity to you every day!

On less philosophical notes I finally finished my application for Prescott College and am looking forward to joining many friends there when I get back. And we made ravioli here with fresh pasta and the classic mix of spinach, ricotta and Parmesan filling. The secret is to add sage in with the water when you boil it!! Yum. 🙂