Increasingly, I am finding that I want to fill my life with more of the simple things.

I want to learn the names of trees and flowers. I want to be able to know, off-hand, which foods are in season. I want to be more patient with the ones I love, and I want to spend more time with my dog. I want to read more books, and I want to send more thank you notes. I want to plant a garden, and I want to become more intentional about looking up at the stars.

Travel, in many ways, is the opposite of simple. It is wonderful and exciting and new in ways that are truly beyond measure, but it is also complicated, emotional, and unpredictable.

It is difficult to say that either of these two states, though, i.e. your life while travelling versus your life at home, is better than the other. They are different, to be sure, but each is beneficial in its own way.

When you’ve been home for a while, you long for the novelty of travel. When you’ve been travelling for a while, you long for the comfort of home. What we lack in one we can find in the other, but to have too much of either one leaves us in a state of deprivation. It is the act of balancing the two, I think, that provides us with the richest, most meaningful overall experience.

After all, as the saying goes, “A ship in the harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are for.”

– J