Traveling

When I travel these days, it is often alone. Maybe I'm meeting someone at my destination, but the actual act of traveling is done alone. I don't resent this at all, in fact I think it helps me enjoy the journey more. I have so much more freedom to go at my own pace, visit shops and restaurants as I see fit, or linger in a place just to people-watch. My introverted nature can be at peace.

Something comes over me when I travel alone. No one I know is around me to judge, so I occasionally do things out of the ordinary, when it strikes me. Little things usually, like ordering food I haven't tried before, or going to a coffee shop I've never heard of rather than going straight to Starbucks, or wandering a bookstore without planning to buy anything, just because I can. Of course my options to do these things are limited in an airport, but I can still enjoy them.

On my flight to Phoenix yesterday, I read the recent issue of the New Yorker. The article written by Joseph Mitchell, as the first chapter of a memoir, made me feel a bit wistful. I got envious of his ability to wander around New York at random, ride buses all day if it fancied him, visit beautiful buildings whether or not he was allowed to. This was where he lived, too, not just somewhere he went to travel. Reminded me how much I love my own city, Seattle. I should explore it more.

I also love people-watching. I don't do it obviously, staring or clearly writing about people around me. It's more that I observe things happening. Perhaps I don't look at people directly, but I'm paying attention. The diversity of people on my plane to Phoenix struck me. I was in an aisle seat, and the guy in the middle seat to my right was an Asian man that seemed drunk when he sat down, but immediately fell sleep, and slept a bit fitfully through the whole 2-3 hour flight. The guy to his right was a middle-aged white man with a full beard, who mostly either looked out the window or played solitare on his laptop. A row in front of me to the left was a younger man with an army-camo backpack. I made the assumption that he had been in--or was still in--the military, since his hair was cropped short, and before the flight, the captain made a comment about thanking the men in service on board (and veterans).

To my left was a couple with their young toddler son, who was incredibly well-behaved, and also slept through the majority of the flight. There were other kids too, some of which wailed a little before the flight took off, but after that were pretty quiet, even making those cute comments only kids feel the freedom to make. When the captain announced we only had 30 minutes until we landed, a girl a few rows back started making a song out of the words. Later, when he announced the people on the left side of the plane could see the Grand Canyon, it seemed like everyone on the plane perked up and looked out the window. There was a gorgeous sunset out of the window near me, on the right, and I overheard another kid saying, "Is that fire?" I had to admit, it looked it.

I could not live happily without a bit of traveling in my life. It's my chance to eat and drink and see new things, to notice the beauty of the world, and realize that we really are all the same, as cliche as that sounds. There were so many different kinds of people on that plane, but as soon as the Grand Canyon came in view, everyone was interested. They put aside their unspoken social rules about not wanting to bother other people and leaned toward the windows, if only for a few moments.

I think once you travel far away once or twice, it's common to catch the traveling bug, and want to just keep doing it, go everywhere, see and try everything. If you haven't caught it yet, I highly recommend it.