wanderlust: a strong longing or impulse toward wandering
To preface, not everyone is capable of this impulse. A good friend of mine is set on settling down, having a family with his fiance, and getting a good job as a professor of Astro-Physics. I'm happy for him, truly, that life is definitely for him. But not, might I stress, for everyone; just as the life I will describe, is not for everyone.
Kira Salak, author of Four Corners, and overall master of adventure, wrote in the preface of her book about the part of the Southwestern United States where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah meet in one spot. Her idea came to her when she was eleven, and stood in four places at the same time. To her, it was a superhuman feat.
My journey began when I was eighteen. Well, just before I was eighteen, I had my landmark birthday somewhere over the Pacific ocean about sixteen hours into the second flight of the day and the fourth of my life. I was traveling to China, with seventy-nine other sixteen to eighteen year olds. I was in my senior year of high school and in the school band that was, strangely enough, invited to perform in Beijing in 2002.
Our days were scheduled down to the minute, but on the third day of our trip we went to the Great Wall and were set loose. I started to climb by myself, passing friends and fellows on the way. [I'll take the liberty at this point to explain that I was born and raised in Chicago; that is, the flat suburbs of the Midwest, and at this time had never seen mountains] Obviously The Great Wall is quiet a climb in the traditional sense. But the point I would like to illustrate is that you don't walk up the Great Wall, you do indeed have to climb it. Some steps are six inches tall, some come up past any normal sized person's midsection. Two hours later, I approached the final fortress on the way to the top. I stopped. I looked down to where I had been, and drenched in sweat that chilled in the March air, climbed those last steps to the peak.
I found then going through that door, something somewhat unexpected. A small thin man, holding dozens of small brass plaques, smiling. He didn't really smile in the way that you expect someone to smile that's trying to sell you something. He looked happy to see everyone that came in the door. And for four yuan, he'd engrave your name on the little brass plaque that celebrated your joining him at the top. How could you not buy this cheap piece of brass. He was so happy to see you, and you'll never see him again. After he handed me my plaque smiling, I realize something amazing about this guy. This guy climbs up these steps everyday. It made me want to do something everyday that is as epic as this. And once I stood ontop of that fortress and saw the mountain ranges in the distance and looked out upon the only man made structure visible from SPACE, I felt something that I've never been able to explain to someone who has not seen that. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.
To wit, my wanderlust was sparked there, in that place, at that time, at that moment, I knew where I had been and where I had wanted to go- which was everywhere. Everyone who knows of the feeling which I speak knows the view, the place, the second that it happened for them.
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