What I Love About Travel

I found myself with a few hours alone in Kerala. I don’t get much time to myself in our travels, always tending to the kids or venturing out as a family unit. This one afternoon was a reminder of why I dreamt of this worldschool experience with our family. I really love travel.

I took at tuktuk to Ft. Cochin and wandered the side streets, handicraft shops, and antique stores. I was in amazingly-named Jew Town, the home of the oldest synagogue in India dating back to the 16th century. I took my time. I chatted with everyone and asked a million questions about India’s history and present. 

I was such a target — a white lady meandering through the shops — so everyone had something to show me. I found myself enjoying the hard sell (which I usually hate) and considering the stories behind each item. I studied the architecture of the buildings; I asked about the “smart cities” sewage system; I got a sense of what people thought of the prime minister (we are here smack in the middle of election season…the feelings are strong on both sides).

More than anything, I could express my curiosity in its purest form, be fully present in this world of newness, and inform my worldview by interacting with a world so far from home. 

In my “real life” I’m addicted to my phone, to the junk served up on social media, and the crises blasted in the news. The world is still falling apart due to human cruelty and indifference. I know I can’t be unplugged forever, but if I could stay in this place of open curiosity and growth, absorbing all this newness, and the rewiring of my synapses, I would stay here forever. 

What a beautiful, horrible, enormous, multi-faceted world is out there. It feels like a great inhale of a bigger reality and an exhale of the fears, stories, and under-informed theories that typically contain my life.