Travel — A Word of the Week
(Verb) To go on a trip or journey; to go through or over (a place) during a trip or journey; to move from one place to another.
(Noun) A journey especially to a distant or unfamiliar place. Movement. Progression. The act of traveling.
“Travel” has meant a lot of different things to me in as many years. Driving a ’93 Honda Accord to work in the next town over; walking to, from, and around school for so many years; schlepping a U-Haul to some far-flung state, and countless other instances. For me, it’s an element of life that I don’t acknowledge until after the fact, simply for what travel entails.
Mostly, it’s just the means of reaching point B from point A. Impromptu runs to Aldi or the grocery store for some obscure ingredient I forgot, usually. Throwing myself into my car and going on autopilot to get to the store, getting exactly what I need, and coming back to home base. It was South Shore Line train rides into the city, where I was always more excited about either getting to Chicago, or getting back home from Chicago. It was a four-hour car ride with friends to reach our mountainous getaway in Vermont; I mostly napped and harangued the driver, but was most excited to get to where we were going. And it’s putting everything I own into a moving truck and, despite safety recommendations, blasting through in as little time as possible to reach my destination (they gave me five days to get to coastal Connecticut from Chicago, and it only took me TWO). Sometimes, travel is just moving from one place to another.
Sometimes, it’s a dread-inducing prospect. Heavy snowfall in a hilly location, where the possibilities of spinning out between Target and your home suddenly skyrocket. And let me tell you, after that one trip, where I spun out three different times, despite being SO careful, I avoided driving for a while. Maybe it’s taking an eight-seat plane up through the mountains of Montana and feeling every slight breeze rock the craft, to and from. Maybe it’s crisscrossing the nation’s sky, from Chicago, to Los Angeles, to Chicago, to Boston, back to Chicago, in the span of a few days, and your body steadily revolting against the pressurization and recirculated air. Maybe it’s doing anything like that in the throes of a pandemic. Travel can be terrifying, or dreadful, or just not appealing.
But the flipside…when it works, it works: travel as a time to fully relax. In a car, the respite I found during the couple months I worked at a movie theater, forty-five minutes away from my home, was beautiful. A few straight lines, limited traffic lights, and (while I worked there) optimal weather conditions. A perfect drive to fully (albeit safely) relax.
But most of all, I did a lot of traveling by Amtrak train when I lived in Connecticut. Between not having a car of my own, hating the concept of air travel, and being a stingy penny-pincher, train travel was much more appealing. I’ve gone from coach seats to a private roomette, and even if my sleep patterns were completely rocked from the trips, there were pockets where I was fully relaxed. Zoning out in the observation car, watching nature fly by from inside this speeding wheel-tube; enjoying everything from contraband Chipotle to the finest microwaved meal options in the diner cars; feet propped up in the sleeper car, playing Stardew Valley while I comfortably let a track take me on its pre-set path…little moments like that, where I achieved a fully-realized state of calm, are why I keep considering using a train, even after getting my own car.
Sometimes, travel is just a chance for me to be with my own thoughts. I’m sure you’ve fallen into it a few times, too, where you’re traveling the same routes and roads you have so many times before, and you can afford to just zone out and be with your head. The best brainstorms, the most profound thoughts, I know I’ve hit them on empty roads, walking to and from buildings on-campus, retreading old paths in a familiar town, or newer sidewalks in a newer town. Reminisces, epiphanies, and the calming void all occupy that same sweet spot of travel.
I often find myself most excited for a destination in my travels: grocery store to get ingredients, town to see family and friends, the time in-between is just a good opportunity to catch up on podcasts. But as I think back, as recently as January 2022, I appreciate more and more of the act of travel, the journey itself, that forgotten time in-between. It was so many Fridays in high school, walking with so many friends through town to get to our one friend’s house, excited to get there, but relishing each other’s company as we made the trek. It was marveling at the nightlit skyline of Chicago as I drove northbound on I-90, terrified of what was next in my life after being fired from my first full-time job, but comforted by a sight I was still excited by after so many years. It was stopping at Wally’s, a roadside attraction-level gas complex on my way to visit friends in central Illinois, because hey, that looks neat, and I can afford to stop for a bit. It was road-tripping it with my best friend from Detroit to Boston, through all manner of weird winter weather, through an entire curated playlist, through handpicked podcast episodes, through flatlands and mountains, rural highways and interstates…being excited for the destination, but just as thrilled for the company, the experience along the way.
I hear stories a lot about my grandmother, but one sticks out above almost all of them: all throughout her life, she would map out, not where she wanted to go when she had time to travel, but how she would get there, relishing the journey just as much as the destination. Travel is both in the final destination and the act of getting there, both as sacred as we let them be.
