Sometimes some of us travel to get away. That space—that distance—from our home life offers perspective and breathing room. Travel creates space.
When we travel, we get a chance to reflect on home…on what is beautiful and what is broken.
Often, we return refreshed, reinvigorated to dig in or embrace or forgive or simply slip back into our normal with a sigh of relief and acceptance.
Sometimes leaving home is what protects it.
Sometimes at home, we are unable to find much distance. Home should be where we are most safe, most benevolent to the world and the earth. Yet, what do we yearn for? Connection with the outside, other worlds.
For me, travel and home are yin and yang: they are separate, but exist as a whole. One heals the other. We cannot venture far at the moment, but we can venture, cautiously together, but apart physically, to raise salutes and lights and song and gusty cheers to our medical community. We gather, standing apart on our balconies or porches or at our windows, but standing for each other, lifting our voices in a Santo Espiritu song; our voices may be thin and weak on their own, but together they chorus in perfect harmony. How is that?
We see (because we must have space between us for a time) what we have taken for granted in the wild busyness of our “normal” lives. Our eyes are open to other’s sacrifices, to the frailty of our fathers and mothers, to the bravery of officials scratching for answers to turn the iceberg around until their fingers are bloody, to the faith of the body that we, indeed, will overcome and rise again to our “normal.”
Fast-write Writing Exercise: Set a timer for 2-5 minutes. If you’re traveling, reflect on what is beautiful and what is broken at home. If you’re at home, reflect on what is beautiful and broken about a place you’ve traveled to.
