World
A big, beautiful world – Wednesday Journal
The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page
St. Augustine
The pandemic upended life and leisure as we know it. After the travel industry lost nearly 75 percent of its value in 2020, it has come roaring back to life. People whose lives had once been in a holding pattern are ready to not just take a mask-less breath but are anxious and excited to take to the skies and the roads once again.
I’m sure you’ve all heard the expression, “Just say yes.” Yes to joining that new yoga studio. Yes to eating more salads and less donuts. Yes to taking that pottery class with your daughter.
I’m saying Yes to travel, i.e. traveling “more.” My parents took my siblings and me on trips every year. Sometimes it was just camping, with all six of us under a moldy, canvas tent tied up to huge oak trees in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. As time marched on, and finances improved, it was Florida, or Palm Springs, or Boston. In my mind, every trip was better than the one before, each holding its own unique memories. My husband and I have tried to do the same with our children, now adults, throughout the years. Hopefully they will continue to imprint the importance of seeing the world on their own families in the years to come.
By now I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m going on and on about post-pandemic travel when it’s been more than a year since the WHO declared the official end to the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ll tell you why: because between a pandemic and a cancer diagnosis, I was in a state of stasis — no change, no movement, no progress. Everything and everyone around me was moving again, but I was immobile. I felt unfamiliar with my own body and suspicious of the world moving around me, but I pushed myself to start traveling again: Florida in spring, Philadelphia, Boston … weekends turned into a week and before I knew it, a week had turned into two weeks in Italy.
A few nights ago, my husband and I returned from a trip to northern Italy to visit the towns where his parents grew up and most of his family still lives — a trip we promised ourselves we would make every year while still healthy and young enough to tackle the Autostrada at 90 mph. Dinners and homemade wine with cousins, drives into the Apuan Alps, and Negronis by the Ligurian Sea. We wandered through churches built before the crusades and Castellos that once housed the Medici. I’ve only just unpacked and am already wanting to go back.
Traveling these days is not for the faint of heart: long security lines, ridiculously big airfare and astonishingly small seats. But I proved to myself that I can still handle it all. Maybe I’m a bit slower, and I don’t get over jetlag as easily, but I did it … and plan to do it again every chance I get.
Travel takes us out of our comfort zones and invites us to taste and see and try new things. It allows us to embrace adventure and new cultures, while also teaching us the valuable life skills of learning to improvise and adapt when plans don’t quite go our way.
As Helen Keller once said, “Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all.”
I choose adventure.
Julianne Wood is a longtime Oak Parker who now lives in Elmwood Park.
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