The gift of travel

I keep being struck by how wild this traveling life is. I have been in the states for the past three months, spending time in seven different states along the way. Most of my time has been in the Southeastern part of the country, and let me tell you, it feels like international travel at times.

I do not mean that in a bad way, I just feel like a foreigner at times. I will be honest, the South is one place that I never had much of a desire to live. One exception would be North Carolina. But after living in the rural Southwest of the state many years ago, I was persuaded otherwise. The tricky part of it all is that I love small towns. I am not a city dwelling human. There is far too much chaos in bigger cities for me. I love the slow, small town life. And small towns are where the real character and culture of regions shine through, for better and worse.

Small town life in the south is unique. In ways it feels like traveling back in time. I keep wanting to compare it to small town living in Colorado, which I know is not very fair. Small towns in Colorado have their own unique flavor but it is very different than the South.

I am currently in Southern Mississippi and I was struck while driving around yesterday how much it reminded me of India. The neighborhood I was driving through was visibly run down but still had this sense of charm and character. Even when the paint was chipping, it was colorful and fun. You could see the history through the wear and tear of every facade.

In India, there are parts of towns where, from the outside looking in, it appears run down. Viewing these areas with my American eyes, I could only see the disrepair that these areas appeared to be in. But if I shifted my view from the homes and towards the people, I always saw joy. The people in these areas did not look unclean, unkept, or destitute. They were often simple, courageous and contented looking humans. I did not see any people walking around this area of town in Mississippi, but I kept imagining they would appear the same. It made me realize that what I am seeing is my story of reality, not the reality of the people who I am seeing. Let me explain.

Traveling has a way of shifting our perspective. That is why I love it and will always have a healthy dose of it in my life, no matter where I settle. If I did not have the privilege of traveling, I might still live in a world where outward appearances are the only sign of success and joy. In many ways, I believe this is the American dream we were all taught. The well manicured green lawn, clean white picket fence, fancy two story home in the best part of town…that is success, right?! If you live like that, you’re automatically happy. If your paint is chipping and your lawn is in disarray, you must be sad and struggling. How odd that I think the appearance of someone’s home can foretell their lived experience.

My brain is always playing around with perception. It is a word that has shifted my life over the past few years in drastic ways. The way we perceive our world is fascinating but what is even more fascinating is how we are taught to curate how we are perceived by others. This may be innately human but it shows up so different in varying parts of the world. While traveling, I am often struck by how my own appearance gives me away as an outsider. How an outfit that would blend in with others in one location causes me to stand out somewhere else. There is nothing more jolting to the system to start to get curious about the why, when, where, and how our own perceptions are formed.

Where I was raised, who I was raised by, the people and places I call home, and the culture that has surrounded me all influence my unique perception of the world. A perception that is mine and mine alone. No matter how similar we are, at the end of the day, my world looks different than yours and there is no way to change that. Layer after layer of stories and beliefs have been painted over each of our unique pair of glasses in which we view the world through. It is completely possible to walk around never being aware of these layers; To live as if everyone sees the same as you. I did it for a long time, and then I left my quiet little world and could not unsee what I saw.

I can still remember how my first tastes of travel upended the idea of normal for me. And it continues to happen every time I am in a place new to me. It used to be so uncomfortable and odd, and sometimes it still is. But I try to quickly move to curiosity. To begin to see how the unique circumstances of someone’s life, their cultural influences and biases, painted their glasses in such a special way. When I can do this, I can begin to see not now different we are, but how similar we are.

Really, no matter how different our appearances, how different our lifestyles, our beliefs, our cultures, or our values, we are all the same. We are simply allowing the stories painted on our unique glasses to color our world. There will always be moments where we forget that the shade of our world is not the same as everyone’s. We will forget that how I perceive is unique to me. Also, how I choose to allow others to perceive me is again, unique to me. There is so much I want to unravel here, so much I want to say. But I think it will take me a lifetime to decipher exactly what it all means to me.

What I will end with is just a quiet reminder that when we judge outwardly, we are doing so through colored lenses. It is important to question where, why and how those colors came to be. That looking at someone’s home and thinking you know anything about them is an extremely egoic perspective to hold.

When you start to notice your own glasses and how they color your world, there will be moments when those very glasses will slip off. These are the moments when the world shifts and you begin to see the sameness rather than the difference. When you are opened up to the reality that your perception is not absolute truth, it is simply a perception of your direct reality.

It is in these moments where I feel less like a foreigner and more like a local, no matter what I look like compared to my surroundings. All the sudden, I don’t need to curate how I am perceived because it simply doesn’t matter. We are all just humans doing the best we can with what we have.