Travel is NOT in my Blood

Having read Graham’s post “Travel is in my Blood” some of you might think: easy for HIM to be an Earth Pilgrim, with such a background! Do realize that Graham’s story depicts an extreme.

To boggle your mind, I decided to write an opposite blog about how travel is not at all in my family. It is safe to say that it depicts the other end of the scale. Unlike Graham, with all his relatives spread around the world, my relatives ALL but one still live in my home town in Holland. More than that, they ALL live in a diameter of about one kilometre of each other. All but one cousin, who moved away to accommodate his job. Talk about stay-at-home-family-that-has-never-left-the-village. A little history might shed some light on this.

My grandfather was a charcoal merchant and his father before him a farmer, as was his father before him. The villagers of my home town farmed on communal land, a vast number of acres owned together in equal shares, and passed on by heritage. When produce or land was sold, the profit was divided. The last acres only went as late as the mid 1980s.

In the local archives, my ex-husband once dug up his family surname in a document dating back as far as the 13^th century. The same archives show that my family has been a part of the communal land share from around mid 16^th century. This might give you an idea of how important ancestry is felt in this community, and how the communal owning of land influenced – and influences – the perception of property.

Last spring my parents celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary. My father recently turned 75. And still lives in the same house he was born in, as his parents gave up part of their house to accommodate the newlyweds. They are perfectly happy there, why move? On top of that, the world outside of the village to a lot of the inhabitants – and to them – was a hostile place, and people in general were out to get you. A good reason to stay put, isn’t it?

I must have been ten or so when my father got his first car. That started off my travel bug. Sitting in the back, watching the clouds pass by, I wanted the ride to last forever! The sheer amazement and beauty of it: following a motorway with exciting names on road signs till the tank almost run out. Then stopping somewhere to get new gas, and back on the road again, to explore more roads that took us further, and even further! And when we came upon a river, there would be a boat you could drive onto and that took you over to the other side, where more roads awaited…

So, why did it take me till 2006 to get moving? Well, I did have all this ancestry in my backpack, but more in line with the truth is that I simply was too afraid to go anywhere. And for the next 25 years, life happened.

I met my soul mate. Straight away we talked about leaving town. The next year it made sense to finish education, then to buy that house. We got married. Nine months later – no, no child. An outer body experience scared the living daylights out of my husband. Everything changed overnight. He didn’t leave the house for 5 years. With a mortgage to pay, I embarked on a career. And buried my travel bug for the time being. We never stopped TALKING about leaving, though. As soon as his situation would improve, we would go to the end of the world!

Feeling outcasts in the village, we isolated ourselves more and more. Over the years, his situation improved bit by bit. I focused on work, yet got more and more dissatisfied. Practicing Reiki and meditation led to me taking up my own space, which in turn led to a build-up of friction. In a final confrontation I took the difficult decision to leave home and start my own life.

At first I was exhilarated, and then I got depressed. A therapist blew my world vision to smithereens. About time! I couldn’t stomach it though, and reeled off into a major health challenge. A very black time, in which I had to face the reality of what had been going on.

In 2004 I was posed with the question: if you could design your life from scratch, what would you do, how would you live? I knew the answer instantly: TRAVEL. The magic of going to places, of meeting new people. Oops, having lived so isolated, I knew hardly anything of the outside world, had been to the airport only once. I had travelled by car, but never on my own. I took a deep breath and focused on: TO BOLDLY GO WHERE MILLIONS HAVE GONE BEFORE!

I visited Scotland, Australia and the US and loved every single second of it! Having to go home soon became a burden, and at the end of 2006 I packed it all in. I dabbled a bit, not quite knowing how to go about this travel thing. But I learned fast. From January 2008 I became a true Earth Pilgrim, seeing Holland as just another stop on my journey. My family, as you can guess, doesn’t quite know how to deal with this. I don’t flash it, nor press; I just smile and leave their comfort zones intact. I know this is not for everyone.

So you see, becoming an Earth Pilgrim has nothing to do with where you come from, your roots, whether or not you have travelled before, or whether you have grown up with it or not, etc. etc. Like Graham, I am no vagabond, backpacker, tourist or a homeless. I just love the buzz of airports and train stations, being on planes and trains, or in a car for that matter, discovering places that I didn’t even know existed.

Although Graham’s and my background are miles apart, it is the travel bug that binds us. And I could have written that last paragraph of his post just as easily, with only one minor change: 

This trot down memory lane is not to trumpet my (…) life, but to show that becoming an Earth Pilgrim comes from a background of being fixed in one place. Having been part of the local culture for so long, it is something that comes naturally to me, helping me to quickly become absorbed into my surroundings. Wherever I am I could call it home and often do. The world is a home to me and one that I never grow bored with.

Just follow your heart, that is all it takes..

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@gphoenix @chetaurmila

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