On Attempting a Travelogue, Part 2

I’m a little at a loss on how to document my journey.

In the Before, I used to walk around a new city, get the feel for it, take plenty of photos while I get lost while waiting for my Northern Hemisphere pigeon sense to kick in, and then pick my favorite 3 or 5 pictures for the day to post on social media.

Easy-peasy: friends and family receive the required proof of life, my holiday is documented for posterity, and I get to relive each day as I decide which of the pictures are worthy of sharing.

This, however, is not the Before anymore. It is now the After.

In the Before, it was all about the places I visited and my actual travel stories. In the After, there is a whole inner journey happening at the same time – and while I’m sure the whole inside thing was there before (it always is with me), this time the volume is turned all the way up – and it has layers.

1. There is the obvious Tourist-y layer. I have some traveling experience now, and I’m not as wide-eyed and innocent as I used to be.

The inner me functioning in this layer chases the Big Ticket Items and Must-See Sights, and takes pictures of them as if I’m completing an assignment; as if I’m gathering evidence to prove that I indeed explored (insert city here). This me is driven, barely rests or sits down with a coffee, sleeps too little and crams the days too full, and often have little fun doing it.

I’ve noticed that these “must-do” photos are often flat and uninspired and without life.

I resent this version of me a little.

2. Then there is the true Traveller in me…the version of me who sees beauty where I walk, ‘even if it’s not pretty’. It’s the part of me that gets immersed in the smells and sounds and colours and spirit of the city around me, and who cries in churches and art galleries, and notices subtle differences in the energetic makeup of cities.

In this layer I take photos that would not necessarily include the Big Ticket Items and Must-See Sights. This is the version of me that captures what I see, and often these become my fondest memories, and the photos are the ones I’m most proud of.

I’m not sure when the Tourist and the Traveler parted ways, but they’ve definitely separated along the way.

As a result of this strange, new split, I find myself hesitant to share these experiences – which in turn implies that I’m hesitant to share a part of myself.

This hesitation presents itself in odd ways – thoughts about not clogging up people’s news feeds, or fears around misperceptions or misrepresentations, or even exposing too much of myself to the world, like in that Constantine Cavalfy poem:

3. Then there is the layer in which lives the slightly-broken me. The exhausted and fatigued and lonely me. The me who is in a state of transition, and have to learn about being and living in the world from scratch. The me who falls asleep on bus rides, and whose feet hurt after a 20km day and is deserving of my own kindness. The me who has been defeated, and must learn to find her own voice again and say when enough is enough, and that she’ll rather sit in the sun eating a crepe than battle the crowds up the Champs-Elysées in order to take another soulless photo of the Arc de Triomphe.

For three days I’ve walked through Paris in the Springtime, but I carried a heaviness with me wherever I went. A heaviness that had nothing to do with my backpack or sore muscles or getting lost.

I have hope for this part of me, but I also feel a great sadness. The last eight months did more damage to my spirit than I thought.

4. The final layer is that of the Pilgrim, on her way to Santiago.

It’s in the way the beauty of the cathedrals feed my soul, or lighting a votive candle lifts my spirit , or just sitting quietly listening to a priest singing opens my heart.

Undoubtedly the most memorable moment of my time in Paris, was when I got my first official stamp in my Pilgrim’s Passport at Notre-Dame Cathedral yesterday.

And of course I immediately burst into tears.

Another big moment was when I “stumbled” on the memorial square for all Pilgrims on the Way of St James on my way home yesterday

I asked a French woman named Audrey, sitting on a nearby park bench, to translate it for me. She asked if I was a Believer, and I said “not really”, but explained how this, to me, was a signpost on the road to Santiago de Compostela.

I made my usual flippant comment about doing my midlife crisis properly, and just as I turned around to leave she asked, since I’m having my mid-life crisis, what advice I would give to my younger self.

It caught me off guard, as I didn’t have a prepared answer or flippant response in my arsenal

“I would spend less time on my career”, I said, “and not worry about all the things that doesn’t matter. Be kinder to people”

This morning I thought “…and also remember to be kinder to yourself”

This fourth layer is a very real layer in which I am redefining my spirituality, and my relationship to myself, and God.

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I started this post wondering about the best way to document my journey.

I still do, but somehow it doesn’t matter as much anymore. I just think maybe I shouldn’t even worry about classifying it as a travelogue.

What I have uncovered is that I’m merely walking all the paths referenced in the name of my blog, at once.

There’s a path clenched up in a fist, driven and and almost violent in its disregard for what is needed to nurture and nourish myself.

There’s a deeply creative self, masked behind projections and performance expectations and the need to produce a result.

There’s a mirrored path, which has shown me my own sorrow.

And there is the promise of an open and sacred heart, on a path that I cannot even begin to understand yet .

Indeed.

My journey has begun.