"Life was movement..."

I am a creature of certain 'strange' habits. I like to keep journals wherever I am traveling, and more than anything else they're filled with pages of jumbled thoughts: ideas for traveling; non-profit project proposals; interesting websites I stumble upon; contact information of fascinating individuals I have met; reminders and to-do lists; drawings and sketches of inspiring sights; handouts or pamphlets I have been given by various hands; and quotable quotes that have moved me from the journals and novellas of other published travelers.

I found one of my older journals last night, buried into my winter clothing stock (which we unexpectedly dipped into!) and found some quotes that obviously moved me greatly at the time since the pages are filled with double-strikes and highlights...however, I cannot for the life of me remember where I first read these quotes. Against habit, I forgot to write the author's name or source.

At first, I was toying with the idea of doing a little bit of research, but decided against it...I like the mystery; I like enjoying the words for just what they are, and not feeling obliged to corner them into context, rhyme or reason from where I was physically, what I was reading, or what my state of mind was like at the time.

Enjoy.

"...She had come to understand what the solitary long-distance traveler learns after months on the road--that in the course of time a trip stops being an interlude of distractions and detours, pursuing sights, looking for pleasures, and becomes a series of disconnections, giving up comfort, abandoning or being abandoned by friends, passing the time in obscure places, inured to the concept of delay, since the trip itself is a succession of delays.

Solving problems, finding meals, buying new clothes and giving away old ones, getting laundry done, buying tickets, scavenging for cheap hotels, studying maps, being alone but not lonely. It was not about happiness but safety, finding serenity, making discoveries in all this locomotion and an equal serenity when she had a place to roost...

...Not a journey anymore, not an outing or an interlude, but seeing the world, not taking a trip, not travel with a start and a finish, but living her life. Life was movement.

How had it happened? She guessed that it had come about by being alone...By earning the money she'd needed and, oddly, by being exploited, like most working people on earth. By being disappointed, abandoned, taken for granted. She did not depend on anyone, surely not a man; she had become strong. The elephant was an example--chained because he was powerful, becoming more powerful because he was chained. Released from that chain, he would flap his ears and fly.

Her illness had given her heart...You fell sick, you got well, then healthier. You didn't go home or call Mom because you'd caught a cold. You paused and cured yourself and continued on your way, stronger than before.

This is my life, Alice thought on the train to Chennai, a good life of my own making, and all the decisions are mine. And here is my journey--a five dollar seat, a ten dollar hotel, a one dollar meal.

...She had enough money, the country was poor, the cost of living low. I'll be fine. She made a mental note to write a post card home--not a letter but just a few sentences, to say hello and to give no information, to show she did not need them.

This was what travel meant, another way of living your life and being free. "