Questions from Brenda: What fuels your desire to travel and did your up bringing influence this desire?
Questions from Trevor: How are you a different person now compared to before you started this phase of your nomad life? Are you a better/superior (morally? intellectually? physically? in any way?) person because you are a traveller?
Questions from Kevin: What would your outlet be if you couldn’t travel? How have travel experiences changed how you live when you’re back home?
How have my life experiences fueled my desire to travel?
My upbringing and first career choice had profound effects on how I view the world. Soul of a Nomadaddresses that personal evolution. My husband’s death, described in Pomegranates at 4800 Metres, set me on my current path of global exploration. Hungry to understand humanity and our place in this world through my own interactions and experiences, I seek answers with the curiosity established and nurtured since I was a child.
Am I a different person now compared to before I started this phase of my nomad life?
Yes. I am more informed, experienced, confident and becoming who I need to be. Having been a member of the Canadian military, a ski patroller, an assistant kayak guide, and still being daughter, mother, widow and friend, I am now also a woman acknowledging her nomadic soul and beginning to understand her privilege in this world.
Am I morally, intellectually, physically better or superior because I’m a traveller?
My personal sense of morality has developed through achieving greater understandings of global issues. Through firsthand knowledge of some of the difficulties faced by people less fortunate than myself, I empathize better with those from cultures and with experiences different than my own. As a traveller, my moral responsibility is to keep an open mind and to remain curious.
An experiential learner, I don’t consider myself an intellectual. I’m developing grassroots wisdom and awareness but leave profound musings to analytical and academic folk.
I try to keep myself in good physical and mental condition to be able to travel the ways I like, by foot, on horseback, or on journeys demanding stamina. Some people have said I’m brave to set off on these adventures. Bravery is courage in the face of danger. My husband was a Search and Rescue Technician. He was brave. Travelling as I do and where I go, is not an act of bravery.
While I’ve become wiser through travelling, I’d never consider myself superior because I travel or because of the way I travel. Attitudes of superiority have caused too much harm in this world. I’d like to think that through travel, any sense of superiority I may have had has been quashed by improved understanding. A familiar manner of being or doing is not necessarily superior to another. Travellers are offered opportunities to experience various ways of being and doing that can improve and broaden our perceptions.
What would my outlet be if I couldn’t travel?
I’ve had two years to consider this question. Writing In the Footsteps of a Roman Legion for forty-hour weeks for the best part of a year kept my mind occupied. I’ve been walking with my dog and a few friends and this has kept my body fit for the next adventure. Labouring in my garden, planting vegetables and not picking berries that withered under the heat dome has reminded me of our vulnerabilities. I find escape in reading books and have been planning two more trips in the hope of one day travelling again.
Have travel experiences influenced how I live when at home?
I think all my travel experiences have blended to provide the moral compass I use to navigate a sometimes-challenging world. When travelling, I pay attention to my surroundings: how do local people behave, what do they eat, where do they live, what makes them laugh?
Visiting less-wealthy or politically, socially, economically dysfunctional nations has had a deep influence on how I see this world. Before travelling, I had an uninformed definition of privilege, imagining the term to be wrapped up in monetary and property wealth. I now define it as the freedoms and securities of being a Canadian. Knowing myself to be a privileged woman, I treasure the advantages of healthcare, personal security, a peaceful democratic society and feel accountable to behave in a globally responsible manner. I see the necessity for empathy and compassion and am sometimes overwhelmed with frustration and shame by the selfishness displayed by some developed-world attitudes. I don’t see the world as “them” and “us.” I see it as a collective “we.”
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