See yourself through tourist’s eyes

“Something has changed…your aura of just pure happiness…”
“You are so zen.”
“That’s why you come off different to me. You’ve been to India. Makes sense now. It’s so interesting how people can notice when we’ve changed that significantly.”
“Why can’t you be calm like Kristina.”

Wait…what?! I’m not pure happiness, or zen, or calm.
Am I?
What the hell are these people talking about?
Why can’t I see those things?

Because we often can’t.
We really don’t.

But if we are lucky – sometimes people give us glimpses.

Glimpses of what it might be like to visit our landscape, to marvel at the beauty – without prescription, without disappointment, and without the day to day irritants that leave us bleary eyed at best, and most often outright blind. 

What we see as damaged cliff, they use as stepping stones to vista views. What we hear as racket, they enjoy as folksong. What we taste as bitter, they call delicacy. Our pheromones of sweat and sex bid and beckon.  We think we just need a shower 😉

I start this year in awe at the marvel which is me.

I start out grateful for people who have given me the glimpses.

And I grow excited when I think of others as representing a variety of places to land and explore – those I’ve known for lifetimes and those I’ve known only for moments. One of my besties, Christy P, who has a kick ass gift for analogy has helped me more fully appreciate all there is to get hyped about.

After a series of stressful relationship hurdles, I was struggling to understand what kept going wrong and why I seemed destined to forever be in a state of perpetual free-fall when it came to romantic partnership. Knowing my love for globetrotting, she encouraged me to look at my partners as geographical pinpoints that I could enjoy visiting without the pressure of planning for permanent residence, and to focus on the new knowledge that each one brought into my life.

Hmmmm…I thought…
Go on…tell me more…

She went on…saying how some partners were like bustling cosmopolitan cities full of culture and insight. Lots of museums.  Plenty to unpack. Coffee shops tucked into street corners. Articulate but unassuming. (A place I could have imagined remaining longer.)

Another partner might be more like exotic island she explained. Beautiful and blissful until the volcanoes erupt. Shaky ground. Unpredictable climate. The uncertainty of whether you could return home safely should you decide to visit. Mammoth bug bites!

Still other partners are like Iowa she continued – steady, but flat. Actually, when I just googled Iowa I learned that its supposed flatness is a huge misconception! Perhaps I/you/we didn’t stay long enough in those relationships to understand there was more to see.  That hills existed. That groundedness and stability can be ultra sexy too.

This new lens got me thinking all kinds of thoughts. Asking all kinds of questions.

What history shapes their stories? What places have they explored?
Can they tell me about the sights and the sounds there? About the secret spots and rumored tales?

The indents in the sand from galloping horses’ hooves.
Sanskrit floating through the air.
How a hammock fits perfectly between those two trees.

What do they know? How can I learn?
Will I ever be able to clearly see?

My assurance to all of you this year is that you have changed. You are changing. You have grown. You are growing. Perhaps imperceptibly to you, but happening just the same.

Sit in that knowing.
Let yourself languish there.
This is worth doing, worth capturing, worth remembering, worth recording.

When I travel, I approach new places with curiosity, with wonder, with a gentle acceptance that this is just the way things work here. I’m not mad that one city doesn’t operate like the next. I don’t visit one country and demand that it look, taste, smell like another.

The exact opposite actually – the draw for me is in the difference.

So why am I so often critical of my own swamps, jagged pieces, and littered lots?
Whole ecosystems live in my waters. Those crags create their own mystical skyline. My trash is burned to warm and fuel. 

See yourself in like appreciation – for the attraction which you are.  

A place you want to visit.

Maybe even stay.