There are many kinds of travelers

one who promotes the art of transience

with ejubulent smiling photos atop picturesque vitas, repleat with apeing friends

sleeps undisturbed by change, in the marvel of perpetual motion

one who never travels

but hastens to add, everyone must

and enjoy it they should

for all they cannot understand, they bundle

in wistfulness and naivity

like a child imagining adulthood

the last traveler is uneasy

feeling a sorrow in changing places

the witness of other lives and roads

since earliest memory the yoke of

vacation was not to be appreciated but mourned

their comfort found in staying still

than the kalidoscope of others spin

demanding constancy and things, unable to be bequeathed

where disturbance comes, in the form of expectation

sorrow of coach stations and midway stops

grief striken as graves and road trips without gasoline

you are said to be fortunate, if you can travel often

the grateful traveler may forget

the gritty loneliness of their highway bed

never admitting they wished to return, even before they set off

belonging is a feeling, some will never attain

their search in crowds of strangers, leaves further lost than claimed

Yet no one

No one at all

Will ever admit

To being loathe to travel

33 Replies to “Paris is for lovers”

  1. So simple yet so poignant too.

    “demanding constancy and things, unable to be bequeathed
    where disturbance comes, in the form of expectation
    sorrow of coach stations and midway stops
    grief striken as graves and road trips without gasoline
    you are said to be fortunate, if you can travel often
    the grateful traveler may forget
    the gritty loneliness of their highway bed
    never admitting they wished to return, even before they set off”

  2. I find myself thinking of how recently in our history humans have found ways to move about other than on our own feet, perhaps a mere 10,000 years out of some hundreds of thousands. Travel, until recently, was rare and arduous, even dangerous. People did migrate and undertake missions of trade, war, exploration, and diplomacy, but travel presumed to be for pleasure with a return home is very new, an industrial behavior with a hunter-gatherer brain, and a mark of some degree of affluence with leisure time (hence its presumed desirability). No wonder it is both uncomfortable and the discomfort must be unacknowledged.

  3. I will admit to being loathe to travel. I desire the comfort of my bed. Of my books. Of my cat.
    When I travel, I do so for a purpose and never just to be. I am. I be. Wherever I am.
    They say to travel to find yourself. To travel to find other people and ways.
    Traveling inward is the more enlightening journey.
    And, in a big city, you can travel a few miles and find a new culture.
    I travel to something or for someone.
    For myself, I would stay.

  4. Much as I love travelling and seeing new places, I love coming back home to the comfort of my own space and bed. Travelling within in – well, awesome. And of course, armchair travelling vicariously through others’ eyes is so interesting. We all see and experience the world in different ways. Paris? I have never been to the city of love and dare say I never will. I hear conflicting opinions from those who have.

  5. “belonging is a feeling, some will never attain” This piece nailed it, and this line is something which was a hard piece to fight for in my life. And still is sometimes. Residual dysfunction, I guess. :/

  6. I don’t like Paris. There I said it 🙂 I think that it was my stab at irony as most people say ‘oh do go to Paris!’ and I really really don’t like that city. I don’t really get along with a lot of travel for a myriad of reasons but definitely agree w/u it’s great to come home!

  7. I didn’t want to be rude and say I have some friends who found Paris to be very unfriendly to non-French speaking tourists. Spoilt their experience. That and poorly maintained public amenities. Make the most of the bits that you enjoy x

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