Money spent on travel makes you rich forever
I have adopted the habit of riding my bike on Sundays.
It’s a bit too predictable for my liking, but after two years of my bike gathering dust in the garage, I realized that I just had to secretly plan it. So whenever I am bored, annoyed, or see an opportunity to escape on Sundays, I hop on, take off, and holler over my shoulder for my husband to mind the babies.
And then, I’m free!
I have the cutest bike. My husband sold my old one out from under me at a garage sale gone haywire. People started poking their noses into our possessions, not our inventory. Rather than directing them back out to the driveway, my husband made a deal to trade my hand-me-down, house-paint-painted, yellow bike for $20. It wasn’t a good bike by any means, but I objected, saying that I still wanted one available to me and it would cost more than $20 to get a basic cruiser.
Andres promised to buy me a new one, and it was just one of those moments in a marriage when you shake your head, but go along for the ride anyway. He asked me what kind of bike I wanted and showed me websites where you could build your own with wacky, candy-colored designs. I didn’t need anything athletic, just a beach cruiser with a basket. On a whim I told him I wanted it to look like those adorable cream-colored Vespas with the brown leather seats. I didn’t put much stake in getting exactly that, but a few months later, I got my wheels which did bear a striking resemblance to that Vespa.
I was free!
This Sunday I took my regular meandering path through town until I reached the bike path by the canal. The week before, I saw 23 iguanas as I rode. Twenty-three! After I saw the first seven, I knew I had an exciting tale to tell my boys, but 23! Wow! Well, that’s Miami.
This week I only saw two baby iguanas and a few ducks, but I still had a most marvelous encounter.
As I biked on the trail, I was suddenly transported to a side street in Bangalore, India, where I once lived and studied yoga. I was on the red dirt road, two blocks from where I purchased my new flip flops, having broken my old pair en route. Banyan trees provided shade, and there were remarkably few people on this road compared to the hustle and bustle just a few blocks away. There I was. Again. And I was the same me that I was fourteen years ago.
I smiled at the recognition.
And I pedaled, back in Miami, briefly.
And then, suddenly I was in Costa Rica, on the road just outside of San Jose that led us to a cloud forest and a volcano. I was a bride of two days. The hectic, dirty traffic of the capital city was finally giving way to mountains of lush greenery. Se vende signs popped up now and then and I thought to myself, we should buy and never go home. It was the beginning of our adventure, the trip and the marriage, and we weren’t exactly sure where we were going, but we raced ahead, excited to see what was next.
Another smile, a few more cadences on the pedals.
Suddenly, I am nineteen years old, getting deliciously lost in downtown Seattle. It is the nineties. In fact, it is the year Kurt Cobain died, which made Seattle a very trendy, it place to be. I didn’t feel a part of that scene, but it felt right to be there. On my own. I was headed to the opening of a new dance studio which was offering classes all day, each for only $1. I had $8 of grocery money in my pocket and I danced all day, awkwardly and passionately. I limped a few miles uphill that night to my first apartment and collapsed, without any food to eat, but completely full and satisfied.
And now, I am a mother with two little boys and a husband pedaling through a ninety-degree heat in Miami, marveling at parts of my life that I often forget.
Oh, the places I’ve been! Oh, the persons I’ve been!
I carry each one with me everywhere I go.
That’s the thing about travel. It can seem like a waste of money on paper.
Buy a car, or a college degree, or a trip around the world! They all cost about the same. A car is something you can use, but it depreciates the moment you drive it. It loses value until it is finally junk, yours or someone else’s. College tuition is an investment which may or may not pan out. It can enrich you and indebt you. A trip is just a trip, nothing tangible comes from it. It is just a collection of experiences.
And yet, it is those experiences which we hold on to our entire lives.
We all carry time and place with us, and our brains see no difference between actually being somewhere or remembering it. From inside, it is all the same: moments. Travelling heightens these moments; they are tinged with the unexpected, so we sit up and take notice. That simple act of attention, sears the memory into our minds forever. Those moments enrich us ever after. Think of that word, enrich. Travel makes us rich forever. The more distant the memory, the sweeter and richer it becomes.
When I am an old woman, I will still be nineteen and dancing in Seattle and thirty-eight and bicycling in Miami, while the Tuscan sun warms the wrinkles on my face. (Italy is my retirement plan, and perhaps by then I will be bold enough to ride a real Vespa, the cream-colored one with the brown leather seat.)
The End
But…
There is something greater than just travel insights and memories that I gained on my bike ride.
I know why those memories flooded back to me, and the reason absolutely astonishes me….
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