There is something addictive about getting up one morning and moving on, leaving everything behind, the baggage of yesterday’s experiences and last night’s dreams; of starting out anew.
It’s an irresponsible way of life, a free life.
In this mode of existence, a day is a long time.
You arrive in a new place and confront the unknown. The simple tasks of finding a place to stay and somewhere to eat, of orienting oneself to the new surroundings and finding out when and where the next bus or train leaves, becomes an odyssey, a journey into the unknown.
Time seems endless. Life is an epic full of frustrations, unforgettable scenes and comic situations.
You can do the most mundane things – walk around aimlessly, play the tourist, take photos, or just look – and take pleasure in them. Everything is new, exciting.
Then before you know it, you wake up one morning to a feeling of familiarity – the feeling that you know this place too well, that you have been here for a long time.
The senses become dulled. You see less, notice less.
You begin to regard your hotel room as ‘home’.
Before long, the strangeness of arrival, intimidating, exhilarating, mysterious, fades. In its place comes the comfort of living to a set of small routines.
Then comes the creeping ennui, the listlessness.
It’s time to move on again.
There’s something addictive about always being a stranger, a pair of eyes wandering an immense foreign landscape, someone who is always arriving and never stays.
Ever the stranger.
