The great philosopher Lao Tzu once said; 'A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.' I do not remember where I read this or how I started thinking about travel again. But, how I feel about packing, looking for my newest passport and itenarary, begging the airline company to get away with paying an extra 100 euros for my overweight luggages and waiting in the line for my passport check is vivid. Wherever I was headed up until now, I was usually alone and trying to manage my carry-ons, had my headphones on and Take It Easy from The Eagles was playing.
After passing the security check, I always stepped into the duty free shops to buy gifts for the people I was gonna visit or for the family members who would be expecting souvenirs from the places I have been to. Red Light District shot glasses, hoodies that had dear pictures from Minnesota, Eiffel Tower shaped perfumes, a world cup soccer ball from 2010 South Africa finals...And of course for the people whom I had no intention of picking out something for; a half eaten box of Rafaello chocolates.
The airports define my understanding of traveling very well. Let's go back to what we see at the airports. Maps to get us started, a Starbucks to keep us from falling asleep, people on the floor with their laptops, having Skype conversations to remind us that we are also leaving the loved ones behind, Prada and Tiffany's stores to corrupt us to waste money on stuff that we do not need, flight numbers and LCD destinations to keep our brains working and people from all around the world to make us understand that we are leaving the well known, comfortable territory behind and a new challenge is about to start by the minute we step outside of gate A43. ..
Having an alcoholic beverage at an overpriced airport pub, losing your cab money playing blackjack at the casino, trying a different cuisine that would later cause you diarrhea and pretending like you are VIP in a conversation with a stranger are some of my airport rituals. Why do the airports matter to me that much? Let me explain.
Airports are the places where you do not have to belong. You could be going to Bangladesh to start your exciting South East Asia adventure or Cuba to salute Guevara, maybe India to rediscover the meaning of spirituality; but you do not have to be going to France to start your painful college studies. What I do when I have to wait at Heathrow for six hours after the kind of madness I pull myself into, with mild symptoms of diarrhea that is probably the result of that Thai food and my empty back pockets that were cleaned out by the Kings casino, is sitting on a bench right across the LCD departures and doing what Alice does before she falls into the Wonderland; I start thinking about six impossible things to start my journey.
I pick out six destinations from the screen that I could be headed to. The sweeping lands of Sahara in Morocco, Tunusia or Egypt, or the tiny mountain tops in Nepal, Buddhist-intensive Tibet to reconstruct what I know or Okavango Delta in Botswana that is not only the oasis for the hippos but also for me to take a break from the dull desert I have been in a while.
Lau Tzu figured what mattered the most centuries ago; the destination means nothing and the idea of arriving should be the end of it all. What is important is taking off, making a decision to leave and to be courageous enough to make a brand new start. Being able to get comfortable with what is different and getting over the concept of settling down and putting an end to the book learning.
This is not a fun entry of travel memoirs, just the opposite; this is about taking off and to be somewhere that you could be in sandals while it is snowing back home and not to be afraid of being far far away. I sincerely hope that the next time I step outside the gate A43, it would lead me to one of the impossibles to change what I have and what I lack. And when the door closed, I would not look back and just enjoy the sweet taste of taking off.
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