This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate!
I’m going to be perfectly blunt here – tackling the topic of a “special someone” or a “love affair” in a public forum when one is married is… Well, it’s not to be taken lightly, let’s just say that. Prior to meeting my husband, I wasn’t the person who had flings when I traveled, so there’s not even a story from the way-back machine I can call upon, and I even use some dating sites as site de rencontre gratuit to know some people out there as well. Instead, then, I’m going to write about the very first thing that came to mind when I read today’s prompt. It’s not a person, or a particular instance, but a feeling I think we experience more often when we travel.
It’s a feeling of possibility.
Travel gives us the opportunity to live life differently than we do at home. It invites us to explore other customs, foreign cultures, and those roads we haven’t taken. I do this in a very mundane sense every time I look at a doorway, a window, or a path that leads out of sight. What’s on the other side of that door, or around that corner? I don’t have to find out in order to find the question intriguing – and, in fact, sometimes it’s more fun if I never find out the truth.
Such is the case with those momentary love affairs we have – in our minds – with the people we meet while traveling. Who among us hasn’t locked eyes with someone beautiful on a crowded train or bus, when in a moment that lasts hours you contemplate the possibilites? Who has never had a deep conversation with another traveler passing through and wondered “what if?”
You don’t have to follow a path to find it intriguing.
Can you do this without travel? Of course – but when you’re stuck in a familiar routine, “possibility” doesn’t often enter the equation. It takes something unexpected to wake up our receptors, and I can’t think of a more reliable way to experience the unexpected on a regular basis than by traveling.
Knowing I won’t make a life with that mysterious man on the train doesn’t stop my mind from wandering, nor does it disappoint me. It’s simply the permission to imagine, to give possibility the keys to my brain for awhile, that’s satisfying.
30 Days of Indie Travel Project: How to Participate
We’re inviting bloggers from around the world (that means you, too!) to join us in a daily blogging effort designed to reflect on how our travel experiences over the last year – or whenever – have shaped us and our view of the world. Bloggers can follow the prompts as strictly or loosely as they like, interpreting them in various ways and responding via text, photos or video posted on their own blogs.
We’ll share some of our favorites via Twitter and Facebook throughout November, as well as a round-up article at the end of the month, so if you’re playing along make sure to let us know – use the #indie30 hashtag on Twitter, and link to the 30 Days of Indie Travel page in your post so we’ll be able to find it.
Find out all of the 30 Days of Indie Travel blogging prompts so far – it’s never too late to join in the fun!
Prompt #21: Love Affair
When we travel, our senses are heightened. We feel more alive and we’re more free to do things we might not at home. We can be who we want. There’s an air of urgency to everything we do – we know our time here, in this place, and with these people, is limited. If we want to do something, we have to do it now. It’s no wonder then that many travelers have relationships on the road. Tell us about a “special someone” you met while traveling.
Tools and inspiration: Discover seven places to make love before you die.
photo by garryknight