Inspiration:
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”
― Walt Whitman
Pictures of Journeys
Do people show slides of their vacations anymore? I suppose now we just post our photos to Facebook or Tumblr, but I’m sure there are plenty of people of my generation who vividly recall the post-vacation ritual of bringing friends or extended family over to view the slide show of where we had been. Pictures were carefully selected and arranged in carousels, and then, in the darkened room, they appeared, not quite as large as life, on the projection screen. One by one, the cathedrals of Europe or the waterfalls of Canada would file past, with or without family members in the foreground.
We travel to collect memories, to gather up those pictures and experiences that can somehow change us, give us a new perspective on the world. We want to bring those experiences home to those we care about. We want to offer up the treasures that we’ve gleaned across the miles. But all our friends and neighbors can see are the projections, not the treasures themselves. The best we can hope for is that others will see the pictures of our journeys and be persuaded to set off for themselves.