Funny how we have to go away to look back. How we get wrapped (or is that rapt?) in ourselves so tightly we miss the perspective. Don't see the forest, not even the tree, but only the protruding piece of bark that annoys us.
It's not physical but cultural distance that counts. I learned more from being in Japan than in England. I learned about Australia, about the little things I had assumed were common to all humanity. They weren't. My mind was whetted again, cut afresh to notice the nuances, the silent expectations, the minute body mannerisms, that I had learnt to miss.
There is an intensity in travel, a pressure that tests relationships, endurance, will-power. That makes you look in as well as out. That can leave you exuberant in stormy skies, and desolate in blue sunshine.
© Farmer 1 March 1996