As June slowly edges to a close, everyone is packing toothbrushes and their buckets and spades and thinking of only one thing: the summer holidays!
My own is already well in preparation, and will take me on a road trip to the south of France, to freeload off family and friends for a few days, and then cross the breadth of that country, over the towering mountains into Italy, to Cisalpine Gaul and the plains of the north of that land, to plonk myself on yet another friend, before traipsing the long road back to my own little blighty. There will be no bucket or spade in my case, nor any suit, and, though I may have to contend with them, my little jalopy will not be trailing a caravan behind it.
If you’re going to block the road, at least do it in style.
Caravans: which originated in the great nomadic movements of northern Africa and Asia Minor, trains of camel-mounted tribespeople criss-crossing the landscape in the search for warmth, cool, food and shelter, the one following the other down trails familiar, despite the shifting of the dunes over time. Convoys of ships of the desert, looking to the stars as their guide, and sticking close for their protection. Just like convoys on the open seas.
They say he travels fastest who travels alone, and this I can attest to, if fastest is he who tarries only where he will, and not where he must halt at the bidding of others. I travel alone for the company. Not for that in my carriage, but that I am obliged to encounter along the way. I travel alone for the ease of accommodations, for I don’t like people snoring when I sleep in my car. For the absence of dispute: I chide myself at my errors, and that much chiding is permitted. For the uncertainty of the road. For being lost is discovery, unless another is tracing the path on his damnèd map. For the sense of adventure. Reassurance in numbers cannot match the heart’s trepidation for adrenalin in the veins.
Oh, I doubt whether I would ever strike up the Orinoco on my own without a guide or some poison antidote. Or venture onto the windswept plains of Kazakhstan without the wisdom of the locals at my side. But, in measured manner, to venture forth into the unknown is surely what holiday is for. Not to lie indolent collecting a tan to be bragged about around the office coffee machine come the autumn; but to break forth from dull, daily routine, and take a week or two to do that for which, in fact, life is even bestowed: the discovery of self, without fear of the world into which one steps, without padding oneself with insurance and guarantees, accumulating a list of complaints at how the suppliers of your leisure will have failed in their contractual duties to your comfort and pleasure; but taking just a few days, to discover our oneness with the world that surrounds us each day of our lives, and passes us unnoticed by for the most of them. A time to look around, and perchance to look inside.
This vacation, get lost. And pray for Jay Slater, who is lost in Tenerife.
Song of the Wind
Written by Gregg Rolie, Carlos Santana and Neal Schon
Performed by Santana
From their 1972 album Caravanserai
“and take a week or two to do that for which, in fact, life is even bestowed: the discovery of self” Dammit. If I quit my job it will be your fault:)