The Difficulty of Unpredictable Joy

Love endures all the tribulations of travel

Today is the three-month mark since we got on that plane in Seattle to begin this travel journey. I pondered this last night while trying to decide if things were going as I thought they would. This is a ridiculous exercise in hindsight fitting, of course. A desperate attempt at self-congratulation for my imaginary prescient foresight. Please. No, it’s not going as I expected because I couldn’t possibly have visualized what our lives would be like from that place deep within the warm cocoon of my previous existence. That scene in The Matrix comes to mind when Neo is awakened to see he is one of a gajillion human batteries powering a world run by artificial intelligence and the machines. If I am being completely honest with myself, I would be radically disappointed if it were going as I expected because that would mean that the hoped-for experiences I dreamed of were entirely predictable and therefore far less difficult.

And this is the crux of it all. Difficulty.

Way back in 1994, I read a great anthology of travel stories titled, I Should Have Stayed Home: The Worst Trips of the Great Writers, which is described as “Writers share moments of discomfort in their travels around the world, including being caught in the outbreak of war, detained by authorities, and confused by local customs.” I loved this book, and I read it a few times. The takeaway was that nobody wanted to read about how you went to some tropical beach and got massaged for a dollar fifty per hour while being plied with umbrella drinks. No, they wanted to read about terrible things happening to you in times of utter panic or confusion and how you handled adversity and came out on the other side a changed person.

While I didn’t exactly crave pain before September of this year, and I have not dealt with anything close to war, famine, or any kind of near-death experience—sorry to disappoint—I did desperately want experiences of the kind that only travel can bring. The truth about full time travel is that it is difficult. I think I can speak for Chien-hui when I say that we are both uncomfortable at all times. 24-hours a day. Even in our sleep.

Laundry day in Lyon, France. Everything is controlled from an ATM machine.

Pharmaceuticals in Mexico City are 1/4th the price of the US

The things one takes utterly for granted at home are mini-Mount Everests on the road. Going to the post office or the pharmacy, weighing green beans, doing your laundry, buying gas, feeding yourself daily, staying warm, sitting in chairs, sleeping! Everything is such a challenge. Everything hurts: feet, back, eyes, stomach, even my hands are so dry. Why are there so many stairs in my life now?

Before I left, if I was told that these things would be the tradeoff to the other good things I have experienced, I still would have pushed all my chips in, as I did three months ago. And my reasons for doing all of this still stand. I wanted to see the world while I still had the resources, health, and energy to do so.

At the risk of sounding braggy, I am also reflecting on just where I have been this year alone. I started off in March with a reunion in San Diego where I spent a few days with my best friends from high school in a house on the beach. In May, I traveled to France for nearly three weeks visiting Paris for the first time, Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, and Cassis. Then I spent another short week in London. From May to September, I liquidated everything I own save for some valuables. On September 9, my 59th birthday, I retired from Deloitte, a company I worked at for 24 years, and that night I celebrated by opening several of the best bottles of wine I have drunk in my life with good friends. Three days later, with my house and car sold, we got on a plane.

Happy birthday and retirement day to me

In just three months, we have been to San Jose, San Diego, Chicago, New Orleans, Dallas, Mexico City, New York, Philadelphia, Dublin, Paris (again), Dijon, Lyon, Annecy, Lafare, Avignon (again), Arles, Orange, and Carpentras. I have visited the wine regions of the Côte D’Or, Savoy, Côte Rôtie, Saint Joseph, Condrieu, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Vacqueyras, Beaumes-de-Venise, and Ventoux. I have seen with my own eyes, within inches of my stupid face, the greatest western paintings on the planet. I love you, Vincent. I have seen pre-Columbian art in Mexico. I have stood in 2000-year-old Roman arenas, touched their architecture and aqueducts with my own hands (maybe that’s why they are so dry?) looked upon their art, statuary, jewelry, and pottery.

Saint Joseph in the northern Rhône region

The Château du Barroux, a 12th century castle in Provence

Ancient Roman Theatre of Orange, France

I have eaten in Michelin-starred restaurants and stood in line for equally delicious street food. I have eaten in French bouillons, bistros, brasseries, and boulangeries. I’ve had Italian food in Mexico City, Indian food in Dijon, Vietnamese food in Arles, and Moroccan food in Avignon. The food halls, the outdoor markets, even the grocery stores, have all been amazing. Everything you’ve ever heard about French cheese is one hundred percent true. Mexico and France are foodie paradises.

Food so spicy it will burn your hands in Mexico City

Pujol in Mexico City was one of the greatest meals of our lives

Cheese is the great passion of the French

I have met so many kind people. I cannot overstate this. So many. I was hugged by an Italian man of the Avignon Bridge (Pont Saint-Bénézet) for no other reason than he was excited to meet an American. We were taken to a five-star dinner by the owners of our Airbnb rental in Dijon and the owner of our Mexico City Airbnb let us stay an extra day for free since we had a red-eye flight “just because she’s a traveler and knows how hard it can be.” We were invited to a wine tasting for a Calabrian winery while we were in Mexico City. A French couple from Valence, who we sat next to in a restaurant in Orange, struck up a conversation with us and told us that their dream was to ride motorcycles in Memphis, TN. This was all done in broken English, broken French, and with the help of Google. We literally cried when the man at La Poste, the French post office, went out of his way to help us ship a box of wine to our friends, as there would have been no way for us to know how to navigate the French mail system. I know it sounds silly to cry, but his kindness was so pure, and we tried clumsily to relay to him that this would have never happened in the US, under any circumstances, but he was confused by our emotion because he was just doing his job.

This is all to say that there is a price to pay for these kinds of small joys. The unpredictable joy of travel is tempered with the constant pain and confusion of travel. Back and forth every day. It’s addictive and repellent.

My perspective is that this kind of life isn’t human. What I mean by that is that we, as a species, crave stability and predictability. To say nothing of a decent f’ing pair of shoes, sitting in comfortable chairs, and most of all, we desperately need the right bed. Simultaneously, we despise the droning boredom of a stable life. We dream of quitting our jobs, jettisoning our responsibilities, and just hitting the road. Stability and predictability are all impossibilities when traveling full time, however, and this begins to grind on you until you cry uncle. So, you keep it up until you can’t any longer. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep this going, but I can’t see it being for much longer. Perhaps a few more months, but I notice that I am spending more and more time standing in front of the windows of the immobiliers (real estate offices) considering the listings. Isn’t that ironic?

I have the greatest admiration for the YouTubers who I follow who have been on the road for years. Not only do they have to create content all day, every day, and then edit and publish that content, I know from personal experience what kind of constant discomfort they are in, even outright pain. I have seen many of them age faster than normal. I have seen a few of them hang it up and just disappear. I get it.

I wouldn’t have done anything differently this year. I am deeply satisfied with all of these experiences while I am simultaneously negotiating the profound emptiness of missing my family, my friends, Deloitte, my favorite knives and cutting board, books, art, the ferries plying the Puget Sound, and the snow-capped Olympic Mountains. Reality is that the grass is greener everywhere, including home, but I had to go and see it for myself to truly understand this. I don’t want to move back home, but I will need to create a new one here and soon. Then I can perhaps create something that looks instead like stability and opportunity.

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