Reclaiming the spirit

The inevitability is that whenever I return from travel, of any kind, it gets me down. Really down. Call it post-travel blues, if you will.

However much you try and explain it, those who aren’t natural travellers just don’t get it.

Whenever I loose my spirit of travel and adventure, for however short a time, it’s immediately noticeable. My horizons recede from the infinite to the all-too-bleak and close. It’s easy enough to be told to take a reality check, to snap out of it and just get on with life, but this is a part of myself I can never surrender. For if I do, I fear the battle within me, on so many levels, will truly be lost.

I’ve been told I’m at my best when I just let go and act on instinct, I really must remember that.
This afternoon I did something very much out of character. I find it virtually impossible to read two books at once (and whinge at those who do), but since my current book Black Swan Green (David Mitchell’s latest) is underwhelming me somewhat, I sat out in the sun and slight breeze with a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (by Richard Bach). Someone gave me a copy a while ago and I never really got around to reading it. Now I’m usually the first to raise an eyebrow at ‘inspirational fables’, after all I ploughed through The Alchemist a few years back only to get the message:

“Omens can be good… And bad.”

Really? Y’say?!

However ‘Seagull resonated much deeper within me. Perhaps it was the metaphor of flight, the contemplation of loneliness and singular instinct; maybe it was the stillness and warmth reading it outside on a bank holiday afternoon. Whatever it was, those few pages have helped rekindle the embers within me.

I’m going outside for a walk in the sun now.

Don't stop me.