I often try to get at least a short ride in wherever I visit. So this morning after breakfast in the kitchen, I borrowed a one-speed and pedaled off down the road. As I was advised, I took the quick left and the road soon became quite narrow, passing by a farmhouse with chickens pecking out in a field, and beyond, brown cows munching contentedly. With the only noise that of the birds, I contemplated how beautiful it is with those wheat fields waving in the distance, and the sunflowers crowned by yellow heads across the narrow road. It was a bit like a dream, a crystalized slice of this piece of the world, and even with a camera and a video recording the sound, I don’t think I could do it justice.
I thought too, about a key aspect of travel that I noticed the most on this trip. If there isn’t someone special, someone near and dear, someone you call your sweetheart, to share this all with, it’s less meaningful and less powerful. I have been a regular traveler and travel writer since 2002, and in all of those years, when I would take off some place faraway, I would always share the places, the sounds, and the feelings with that special someone. Over the years that someone changes, but the act of sharing intimate moments that one experiences in travel is a powerful connector.
I realized that in this time of my life, that that someone is missing. So no matter how much I felt, when the glorious sounds of a summer morning in a place as beautiful as southwest France moved me to record the birds, and try and remember the details that made it so great, it pales and fades into simply my own memory without a person to share it with.
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I too have thought much about this issue.
I’m still on the fence….I wrote this a few months ago: http://blogs.gonomad.com/wake-and-wander/2011/03/10/some-thoughts-about-traveling-alone/
Excellent writing, I’ve just started reading your blog and have always been entranced by France. I’m glad to find somewhere to learn more about what it’s really like to settle there!
You make a good point about traveling alone, although I feel that, if you had never had a special someone to accompany you in the past, then the ache of not having that person alongside any longer is not noticeable. I’m still young enough, thank God, to be free of any such lingering losses. I hope your ache recedes, my friend.
I hope you don’t mind me putting out a quick “check this out” for my own travel blog, http://www.roguescope.com
Thanks and I look forward to reading more of your work, Max.