As a person who has been confined to the US and its territories, I have surprisingly always had this itch for travel. While most of the time when I travel, its for a family vacation, or just to visit family. While this can sometimes be difficult to control where I want to go, it does not limit my imagination to where I can go next. And while each time I travel is nerve-wracking, I’m convinced that after the struggle of the journey, that there’s always something to look back at after the fact and something to be happy about and reflect upon once at the destination.
The question of the “why” we travel to be something related to curiosity, or something that is hidden deeper inside of us. Sometimes that why comes along with an “I need this” or just some time to explore aimlessly. In the reading for this assignment, Iyer says that
“…we travel, in essence, to become young fools again — to slow time down and get taken in and fall in love once more”.
When he writes that there is a falling in love once more with whatever we are doing, it hints that there is an idea of the fall. That we all have a curious tie to this love in nature, or whatever passions you have, and there is this moment where you have this enlightening experience to travel.
I’ve haven’t specifically had an enlightening experience, but a moment of enlightened realization of nature and of myself. Before coming to school, and during this whole summer I had developed this sensation and feeling of anxiety and “corona depression”. I was self-aware but hadn’t come to terms that I was living, but I was not “alive”, and that this Pandemic had left a toll on my mental health. A couple of weeks before I moved back to DC I was driving to a campground in the Adirondacks with my family and had insisted to myself that this was a reset that I possibly needed. While the driving wasn’t taxing, the time had felt like forever once I moved into the second half of the trip. It was my impatience needling, and my desire was growing. The desire to do something other than sit, and in the moment, I wanted to just walk, or even run the rest of the way then drive.
Once I had gotten there, I drove up to the campground I was staying at. All were separated by about 100 ft of space, and the grounds were as empty as a ghost town. I practically saw 20 people in total close to me, which gave me this sense of isolation. I had to go for a run at some point by myself, and since I was in the Adirondacks, I felt as if this were the perfect opportunity to “explore”, or to just run and be relaxed and in the moment.
When I first started on my route, I wanted to see as much as I could, so I decided on an out and back. A few miles in I was surrounded by forest on these isolated roads, which towered me and made me feel as insignificant in size as I could feel. It was relaxing because there were no cars, and (since it was the Adirondacks) I saw multiple mountains in the distance. They looked as if they were small and distant, but I knew better since I could see some up close eventually and would get to feel the real size of the mountain.
I fell into a Xen mode where I had zoned out and wasn’t thinking about anything except for that the pine trees around me created this contrast with my surroundings to create a tunnel where I felt insignificant. Suddenly I had stumbled upon a clearing in the forest where power lines were leading through. I was curious to see what the view looked like, and as I passed, saw this mountain in the clearing, and had really felt the sense of where I stood. On my way back, I sat down on the side of the road in the dirt, and just sat down and took in the view. While not the biggest mountain ever, I had this feeling of relishing the moment since I was by myself, and as in the middle of nowhere as I could be. At this moment I had fallen in love with the nature around me and proceeded to explore more of what was unknown to me. This time that I had was something that I needed, but it was important since I had this feeling of excitement and wanting a whole lot more than what I originally wanted.
One reply on “The Love For Exploration (Description/Narrative?)”
Nathan, This is a pleasant narrative and I enjoyed reading it. I would def consider this a narrative, and not a description: a description paints a picture using concrete sensory details. To improve, I would suggest further considering what a narrative “is,” and how it can be structured in different ways. For instance, you begin this narrative almost like an academic essay. Why? Feel free to release your creative spirit: you don’t need to abide the usual constraints for this project. So I would consider pushing your understanding of narrative stucture. One way you might do this is beginning the narrative “in medias res” (in the middle of things). This is a great way to tell a story, bringing your reader directly into the action right away. After that, you can step back and set the scene. And this is just but one strategy in the complicated world of narrative structure!