The following is an email I sent to a friend. I figured it said some stuff I’ve been trying to convey in another post I was working on. Only, you know, better.
I’ve got another post coming in a day or so. The hostel wifi simply does not exist, so I have to hunt down fast food joints to move the datas through the tubes. So, sorry for the delays. Thanks for reading.
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I have two answers:
“Sweet City Woman” by the Stampeders. If the song doesn’t make you happy within ten seconds, something other than blood flows through you. There is a banjo and an upbeat tempo and harmonies. I like it.
The second is “Here Comes the Sun.” Maybe it’s cliché, but that song just does something to me that I can’t explain. In the right context, it can lump my throat.
Speaking of music, I decided on a theme song for my trip. It’s a song called “Winter Solstice” by the Tea Party. It’s beautiful, instrumental, and it somehow manages to convey the mood of the trip.
Do you have any theme songs, so to speak?
I’m in Montpellier, France, right now. I don’t really care for it, but I’ve only been in the hostel. Maybe I’ll go out once my phone charges.
Sorry you’re not enjoying The Trip. Maybe I like it because – don’t take this the wrong way – I’m older and can relate to Brydon and Coogan a bit more. I want to be more like Brydon (who has his shit together, a family, and confidence) but I more often feel like Coogan (lonely, sometimes angry, and, well, arrogant). Not to say Rob’s character isn’t flawed, nor is Steve always a loathsome lothario) but inside that’s how I sometimes feel.
Not that I’m having a mid-life crisis (maybe a quarter-life one…) but the…maybe it’s fear of loss of youth or attempts at proving (even finding) a sense of self-worth which both characters show, I’m sort of getting that.
It’s incredibly hard travelling alone at this age (28 isn’t even that old!). Or maybe I’m focusing too hard on it. Point is, all I hear is “uni” this and “gap year” that, and all these kids with plans and direction. Maybe I’m jealous.
I meet people and grow to care for them in a short time, then suddenly they’re gone. It’s the nature of backpacking alone; string of hundreds of tiny heartbreaks. It drags. It gets to the point that you don’t want to keep going, you want to stop meeting people for fear of the sense of loss that is inevitable.
Sometimes you’ll travel with people, which is great fun. But the end of those sequences are even harder.
I hate goodbyes, but it gets to the point where the hellos are worse.
I’m not giving up – I know I said something along those lines up here. I think it’s just nearing the point where I have to slow down. Get some clarity to my trip notes. Maybe find a place to stay put. Maybe evaluate the reevaluation.
Do you know a song called “Thumbing My Way” by Pearl Jam? There’s a line in it saying “oh, I turned my back/now there’s no turning back. No matter how cold the winter, there’s a springtime ahead. I smile, but who am I kidding? I’m just walking the miles, every once in a while I’ll get a ride, I’m thumbing my way back to heaven.”
For some reason that’s really resonating with me. Just need to find this “heaven,” I guess.
Sorry for the rambling.
Dan