I used to dream of being an organised traveller.
Not so much the kind who breezes off a flight towards customs in six-inch heels, perfect hair, trailing a Louis Vuitton, but just… Ready. Calm. Present. Preferably on time and not hurtling towards the check-in desk with overweight luggage an hour before my Paris-bound flight left Melbourne, having packed up my life and career in a record six days’ time. (That may’ve been me at Tullamarine Airport, August 2011).
On time.
It was that knowledge that I’d never have the time, never enough time, never uninterrupted time, to travel, to engage and explore the Northern Hemisphere – no more than six wintry weeks – which meant there was an ever-obvious choice: leave Melbourne, let go, and embrace something else. Not just take the time – create the time, the time we live in.
It took a while. Sixteen months later I actually felt ready to begin the next chapter. With bubbling anticipation, and calmer gratitude, that I re-embarked on a year-long… challenge, not knowing exactly when I’d return ‘home’, that is, back to Melbourne. The ticket not booked, the route not planned, and the rest still unwritten.
I landed in London on January 2, 2013. And in the blink of an eye, in a New York minute, in the half-decade that’s followed, I’ve wandered there and around and back more times than I can count on both hands.
Here’s the Wanderer’s Tale…
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