Travel is amazing. It is eye opening, it expands your mind, makes you more understanding and kinder. What we often forget after the high of a world wind adventure wears off and years of dust pile on is: travel can test the patience of even the worlds’ broadest, kindest, sympathetic person. The memory of the long, uncomfortable hours are filed down until they are rough and dull and you can’t really remember them at all…That is until they are running at you ready to grab you and take you down.
Advice from me: remain calm, keep breathing, and go with the flow. By working yourself up about a situation in which (especially when traveling) there’s nothing you can do only makes you more upset and draws your attention from the present. When traveling you must always be present.
So you spilt coffee onto your lap within the first hour of your flight? No big deal. You will live; once the pain subsides and the cool damp, Amazonian smell of your clothes seeps into the air around you. Don’t panic, if you’re a seasoned traveler then you’ve packed a change of clothes to swap out of on the next leg of your trip.
So you bought a defective lock that has decided to fuse itself to your carry on? I understand now you cant get to that extra stash of clothes and the smell of old coffee has started to drive you crazy. After the initial panic of not being able to get to your passport or boarding pass also passes, you erase the fog from your mind. Try the lock again. Again. Again.
Again.
Again.
So it still wouldn’t come off even though you’re positive of the code? No big deal; your hand is small enough to wedge itself down into the bottom of your back pack via an opening the size of an orange. You search frantically like Velma until, blindly, your hand meets the familiar shape of your passport. It’s crumpled and exhausted by the time you get it out but at least you got it out. So it’s the only thing beside your headphones and cell phone that you can get to? This is just proof that everything you thoughtfully packed (then unpacked three or four times trying to find the smallest area that the items would take up) is ultimately unnecessary.
So you lost the perfect water bottle before you even left the country? So you realized you brought too much?
So you forgot that one essential item?
So what. Look up. Forget the water bottle. Stop fretting over these items. Pull your head out of the sand and your hand out from the depths of your carry on. See what you’ve missed.
Today, you’ve arrived in Dubai, a world completely unlike your own. The beautiful velvety voice of the Imam is singing. It fills the air around you and it floats you. To you, there are no words but rather notes laid flawlessly like bricks with a greater purpose as the whole room shifts and becomes quieter. Look at this religious foundation; unfamiliar but so beautiful. With your head so busy you thought it was mid day. It’s not. It’s the evening call to prayer and you’ve never experienced anything like it. When it stops the pace changes again. It is louder but quieter at the same time. Around you, women are wrapped up in scarves like beautiful pieces of candy chasing children who are running backwards playing tag on the moving side walk. Business men in long white robes walk proudly through the crowd. Foreigners take angular photographs trying to capture the unique architecture of the city. Merchants stand quietly eager at their store fronts never bothering a soul as they drift by. There is no need to fish for customers, their duty-free items don’t sit on shelves for long.
Watch. This whole world turns, without you, bustling with life and color while you sleep on the other side of the globe.
Look up, you’ve never seen it.
The Way U Carry It 