#14 Quote

I'm coming back to the 30 Days of Indie Travel Challenge on BootsnAll. Prompt #14: QUOTE What’s your favorite quote about travel? Why does it stand out to you?



I really like the movie Dead Poet's Society. Cliché maybe, but I will not apologize for that. And while I was on this most recent trip, either traipsing through a river or cave or national park or glacier or something, this quote popped into my head. It's probably because, like the characters in the movie, I left my day-to-day life for a moment to spend time in nature and do something else.

This quote is not about travel, but I think it is why I travel.

The sucking the marrow out of life and discovering how to live blah blah blah is very poetic and all, but my absolute favorite part of it is the "live deliberately" part.

Whatever we have going on every day — jobs to go to, friends to see, meals to be eaten, pets to be taken care of, in my case yoga or French classes to attend — those things become habitual no matter how much we love or enjoy them. Ever thought to yourself "it's already Friday?" or "January is already over?" Sometimes... well oftentimes... I forget to think about why I am doing what I am doing. And then I forget to feel feelings because there's somethng else to do.

Traveling to a new city or country puts me someplace where it is impossible to go through the motions of my day, because I have no schedule or habits tied to the place. My Chicago life is crazy overscheduled, plus there's that stuff that I constantly have to take care of like the laundry, dirty dishes, or sorting through junk mail. Although I can work on living deliberately here, it is tough to bring a deliberate decision-making process to washing clothes or dishes or getting rid of yet another Bon Appetit subscription offer. Those things just need to be done.

But when I am traveling, either a bit lonely in a city that isn't doing much for me or sipping wine with new friends at ukulele concert in a vineyard, I am not thinking about what's next on my to-do list. Maybe I travel to these places to suck out all the marrow of life. But mostly I think I have come to deliberately live these great memories and experiences.