Be Present. Connect. Extend Learning.
If you have been reading this blog since I started it a little over two years ago, you know that I envisioned telling my stories of travels past after hearing for years from friends I should "just write that story down." I did not aspire for my blog to launch me into the realm of an influencer (and I still don't); I simply wanted it to be a place where I could share my stories and favorite pictures from my travels. Something I could look back at years from now to relive the experiences I had as I traveled the world. As I prepared to launch my blog, I made a list of all the stories I wanted to tell and the order I planned to tell them. And if you know me, I LOVE lists. Yes, I'm a tiny bit OCD about them, too. And I'm ok with that. But I digress.
Of course, no one could have predicted that a mere few months after I finally took the plunge and started writing my blog that the world would upend itself as we entered the beginning of this pandemic. Travel as we knew it came to a complete halt. As I, along with the rest of the world was thrust into isolation, suddenly the idea of writing about my then recent trip to Morocco felt strangely inappropriate. It had been one of the most memorable cultural experiences I'd had thus far, yet I just could not bring myself to share it not knowing what was to come in terms of travel in the months ahead. While I will write that story someday, in the months that followed I begrudgingly forced myself to abandon my list of blogs to be written and my well-laid plans of how I wanted to tell my stories. It felt strange and still does. Looking back, it was one of the many lessons I've learned during this pandemic. How to shift, which I have written about before.
I also learned that this blog was going to take shape in different ways. The stories I would tell would not always be in the sequential order I had come up with in my mind. That each blog as it developed would later become thoughts of the here and now of what I was thinking at the time I was writing. That the journey of writing would evolve just as much as the meaning behind my travels during the last two years.
Not too long ago in a travel-related Facebook group that I am member of, a fellow member of the group shared the following quote from a book she'd recently read entitled Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad. The quote is as follows:
"When we travel, we actually take three trips. There's the first trip of preparation and anticipation, packing and daydreaming. There's the trip you are actually on. And then, there's the trip you remember. The key is to try to keep all three as separate as possible. The key is to be present wherever you are right now."
The quote hit home with me in ways I'm about to share with you, but true to form I immediately knew I needed to add that book to my list of books to be read and zoomed over to my Amazon.com account only to find I had already flagged it in my wish list to order the next time I needed something to read. And as weeks later I read through the final edit of this blog, that book has been ordered and I plan to read it on my next trip in a few weeks.
For those that know me personally, you know I spent many years working with families of young children with developmental delays as their developmental therapist and educator. A job that allowed me to interact, work with, and learn from families from all over the world in the diverse community in which I work. While I was an educator, and teaching them, my own learning was extended with each family I worked with. Even though my focus was on their young child's development, as our sessions took place in their homes I became a part of their lives, learned how they lived, where they came from, and what was important to them. I had opportunities to connect with people from all walks of life and learn about experiences I could have never imagined. It often led me to add to my list of places I wanted to visit around the world. As my career evolved, for the last several years my role has shifted to providing professional development and trainings to an array of early childhood professionals. One of the multi-session training courses I developed last summer and have been facilitating with small groups since is focused on the three steps to powerful interactions. Those three steps are:
Be Present. Connect. Extend Learning.
While the focus of the multi-session training is on working with and educating young children, like all of my trainings I often try to make the content more relatable to my adult participants by drawing the parallels of these concepts to the interactions that they have within their daily lives. With their significant others, family members, friends, colleagues, and random people they meet and just have a passing interaction with.
What struck me when I read that quote from Jaouad's book, was how what I have been teaching professionally parallels how my travels have evolved in the last two years. As I think back to my first "pandemic" trip to Croatia in September 2020, I remember this overwhelming feeling of relief (and probably a little bit of disbelief at first) that I had made it to Dubrovnik. And while I think it was a few days before I fully exhaled once I arrived, I also remember so many times during those next two and half weeks of just feeling this need to be present in that moment, no matter which city I was visiting, which major site I was exploring, or if I was just admiring a beautiful view. To take a breath, take in how I was feeling, be aware of the sights, smells, and sounds around me and to be fully present right then at that moment. Not unlike what I teach those that attend my trainings. That notion of remaining present stuck with me in the trips I've taken since that journey in September 2020, as I can recall on each trip having moments where I'd just stop, look around and truly relish in where I was, what I was experiencing and whom I might have met during that trip. Which leads me to the next step.
I wrote a little about my need for connection a few months ago when I wrote my blog about my time in Crete last October. I won't lie and say that the fact that the majority of my travels over the last 18 months (and coincidently the last trip I took to Morocco just before the pandemic started) involved yoga retreats was certainly a blessing in disguise. Did I plan it that way? Not entirely, though I was lucky that Morocco and Croatia were planned before the pandemic became part of our daily thought process; I do believe it was meant to be that they became an integral part of my travels. They allowed me to connect with like-minded people from around the world almost immediately. And while I connected with so many amazing yogis on each of the retreats I've attended since Croatia, I won't be remiss in forgetting the other connections I've made on my travels, too. From another solo traveler on a boat tour in Croatia who has become a friend whom I hope to connect with again soon, to connections over a shared love of wine as I explored Georgia last summer, to the yogi's I shared deep and intense conversations with on retreat in Crete, those connections felt more powerful and became more meaningful than anything I saw or did during each of those trips.
As the pandemic evolved and my thirst for travel led me to Georgia, a place that had never been on my radar, it was not until more recently that I realized it was not only my thirst to explore the world, but my desire to learn more about it. As I dove into my research as I furiously planned my trip to Georgia about this time last year, I had no idea how much that trip would extend my learning. It was a part of the world I knew little about, yet one of the most eye- opening experiences I'd had while traveling. A veteran of pandemic travel by that point, I'd practiced taking a step back and just being present that it has become ingrained in my travels. I connected with fellow wine lovers and learned more history about Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine that I could even digest at the time and am still digesting. And it made me want to learn more and extend my own learning.
As I wrap up this intuitive musing, if you have been traveling over the last two years, or if you're about to take that first pandemic trip or are planning a trip in the future I ask you to make sure you take a moment to be present, connect, and extend your learning. As I plan the details of my upcoming trip, I can assure you those three steps are at the front of my mind.
"The best education you will is get traveling. Nothing teaches you more than exploring the world and accumulating experiences." -Unknown
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