Travel Thoughts

7.23.06

In a recent training I attended stateside, I was reminded that there are no reset buttons in life, but I disagree. People makce changes (and it´s my job to help them do so when they wish assistance), re-invent themselves or if they´re fortunate,find their true complex identities over the course of living. Life crisise can prompt such re_evaluations. But travel too can take you out of your routine and in so doing challenges what you think you know about yourself. When you can´t eat, drink, sleep communicate, even pee and poo (here you must put the toilet paper in the waste basket not the bowl, very hard to remember)as you usually do, you realize what´s most important, what you miss, what you don`t miss, what you dare do under different circumstances.

You try new foods, walk new paths, turn new corners, laugh at your inability to figure out a pay phone, joke with the waiters, make a face at the Nestle chocolate bran bar (good thinking from a health educators point of view, though), get political withteh internet cafe owner about our tonto, loco presidente (my words not his). You imagine moving to a new place and leaving your old life (mistakes, foibles, feats) behind. And of course forget that you will take them with you whereever you go.

The mirrors change when you are the stranger in the strange land. Unless of course you bring your looking glass with you.