In-Betweeness
The Joy Of Overland Travel
Four times on this trip, I’ve walked from the skybridge on one continent onto a airplane and, in a matter of hours, disembarked onto a different continent. Air travel still astonishes me. Distances that would have cost our forefathers months (and possible battles with unfaithful oxen and disantary) can now be traversed during a Hugh Grant movie marathon. While I certainly appreciate the efficiency of traveling at 30,000 feet in a metal box, the past few months traveling overland through Africa has given me a true appreciation for the in-betweenness of travel.
Feeling the hustle of Nairobi dissipate into the tranquility of the Kenyan countryside, watching fertile hills of Malawi give way to the barren desserts of Mozambique, exhaling the smog of Dar-Es Salaam only to inhale the catch-of-the-day at a Zanzibar’s fish market — the subtle ebb and flow of landscapes, cultures, and livelihoods only materialize during slow travel. The times of limbo — at the boarder post, on the trail, or in-line at the market — become ends in themselves when you choose to see every step as a destination.
I used to think this was a luxury of long-term travel. Maybe when you don’t have to fit a holiday into 10 days, more room is left for sites that might not lend themselves to photo-opportunities. I’ve come to learn that appreciating the in-betweenness, is more a matter of mentality than circumstance. Not all of my bus rides have had nice scenery out the window. Not every train compartment comes with with a gregarious Philippina woman who wants to introduce me to her daughter. But, the down time of travel serves a purpose just as vital as the World Heritage site. During constant periods of stimulus without the time to rest, process, and recharge, the mind becomes a gallery wall without the requisite negative space.
In Alan Watt’s The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, he has this great passage about the space between things. “Let’s consider music. When you hear music, most people think that what they hear is a succession of notes or tones. If all you heard when you listen to music were a succession of tones, you would hear no melody and no harmony. What you really hear when you hear melody is the interval between one tone and another…the interval between this year’s leaves, last year’s leaves, this generation of people and that generation.” Whether heading home or to a foreign land, not being there is an essential point of being there.
One of the initial goals I set out with on this trip was to gain perspective. I wan’t really sure what that meant in practice. Maybe it was to expose myself to ways of dancing, eating, and living that I didn’t know existed. Maybe it was to go to the War Rememberance museum in Saigon and see that there are two sides to every story. A Yoga teacher I met in Indonesia told me that, “Traveling is drawing the line of the horizon farther away.” It’s a beautiful image. Like stargazing in an empty field, or watching the sunset over a vast ocean, traveling increases our idea of the infinite.
But instead of needing to see more countries or taste more delicacies at this point, I already have more than enough horizon to work with. My job now becomes that of an orthodontist putting spacers into a prepubescent mouth. All the answers and feelings I set out to find already exist within me, it’s just a matter of finding the space to recognize where they’re waiting.
