Travel from home!
The bright sun rays fell on my face through the gap between the curtains. I could hear the birds chirping and the sound of falls from a faraway distance. I pushed away the blankets, slowly stood up from my bed to stand on the cold wooden floor and stretched my stiff arms. I withdrew the curtains to a beautiful mountain-forest scenery. My cabin was a few floors above the ground, hence I had a breathtaking view from the balcony. Exotic birds were flying around happily chirping. The hills, mountains and the ever expanding greenery greeted me and the clouds were floating a few feet below my balcony giving me a picturesque scenery. My dad walked in, greeting me with a cup of hot chocolate and a warm morning hug. I felt the warmth from the hot chocolate spread throughout my body compensating the chilly weather. I felt as if I were in Paradise.
Then, my alarm blared saying It’s 6:30 am and I woke up again from a beautiful dream to face the never ending monotonous online classes! Only god knows how much I crave traveling even if it was just on the way to my school on bus with my friends. With the pandemic and lock-downs we (especially me) rarely go out considering the danger of the situation. A podcast I recently listened to said that even without lock-downs and pandemic, we spend 80% of our lives in a closed indoor environment or precisely within four walls surrounding us. Then why do we feel mentally tortured? Is it because of the online classes or that we miss social interaction and the little traveling on the way to school or work? (I would go with the former but the latter applies too!). Every morning I used to love watching people busily commuting while waiting for my bus and the crazy things my friends and I do on the way to school even when I dreaded going to school. I used to appreciate the sunrise, the cool early morning breeze and the smell of fresh mornings. Even if it was small it was a significant thing that we all miss ; traveling to and from school or office and the fresh air. Any sort of social interaction feels satisfying. Aren’t we all just craving to have a long drive with family on a holiday with no worries or fears?
I felt the effects of the lock-down and online classes mentally torturing me. No matter the number of YouTube videos I watch on productivity I know it won’t work for more than three days in a row. So hence I devised this new technique to travel from home! Yes, I know it’s not as nearly as good as real traveling but this is a sort of a mental escape that I designed for myself to take a break. There are two parts to this Travel from home ; one is reliving and the second is Exploring.
The reliving part includes imagining yourself in a place and situation you already have been to and would love to go to again. I would Imagine and recollect every single detail I can about that place. Reliving a memory works best when you can recollect the visuals, smell, sound and the feelings in that place successfully. Have you ever gone to a place where the smell of that place suddenly reminds you of a memory? That’s mainly due to connection of the olfactory lobes to the base of our brains that has direct connection to the parts that triggers memory and emotions. Every time I feel stressed or caged, I just close my eyes and mentally relocate myself to a memory. Oddly I find overnight train travels and early morning car travels calming. I would imagine myself in a train station at 3 am in the morning when the sun is still hiding. I would recollect the cool breeze, the mixed smell of coal smoke, engine oil and the sweet smell unique to Indian Railway platforms. The typical railway platform sounds; the multi language announcement of upcoming trains, the sound of trains passing, those unique loud and high pitched “tea-coffee-tea” and passengers walking around carrying their luggage sleepily feel so close to heart yet faraway from reach! This sort of reliving of a memory not only brings back a nostalgic feeling but also gives us a great escape from our monotonous lives!
The second part of my Travel from home, that is, Exploring takes a lot of mental power and imagination according to me. I would watch travel vlogs, location pictures and videos and try to imagine myself in that place. But mental Exploration of your dream location is quite a task when you can only predict what the smells, sounds and the weather feels like. I would try listening to their cultural music and read stuff about it. Even though I haven’t expertise in the field of mental exploration, I’m always ready to break out of my comfort zone for a little extra effort in imagination.
With worsening conditions and depressing news on all social media we start to crave some sort of positivity that would help us go about our day. There maybe arguments that we have to go about our daily routine as any normal day but we cannot ignore the fact that we are missing a lot of little things in our life. Our only resort is taking a little extra time to get lost in our own world of imagination to maintain our sanity and find happiness and positivity in little things we can do at home. After all it’s the little things in our life that adds up to most part of our lifetime.
