There is an awful, disorienting feeling that comes from constantly shifting your location on the planet. It occurs mostly at night - waking up in a strange bed in an unfamiliar room to unrecognizable sounds and smells. In the darkness, your mind struggles to grasp ahold of reality, to plant itself firmly in a place of familiarity. Yet it cannot recollect this new room, seemingly shifting from underneath you in the stream of new places experienced each day.
You slip between confused dreams and hazy consciousness, restless and exhausted, lost and drifting. It isn't until morning that the thoughts seem to align, configure themselves, and you can remember where, exactly, you are. Yet in the days ahead, you will leave this place just as it begins to become familiar, and once again you will endure the disorientation of newness.
I've spoken with a lot of travellers about this, and more often about its opposite - when you stay somewhere for several days; long enough to unpack your backpack. One friend relishes the moment where he can uncap his toothbrush and leave it in the bathroom. Another, folding her clothes and putting them into drawers.
Recently, I've been asking fellow travellers how they'd describe this feeling in one word. A few of my friends said "security" and “comfort.” A few Irish ladies called their five-night stay in one town their “base,” while one friend described a similar situation as his "territory." One friend couldn’t put it into words – he only described it with a relaxed sigh of relief. For me, it is to "decompress," to let yourself unwind, spread out and reorganize. Others, who float through the world unanchored, are happy enough to call a three-night stay "home."
There’s nothing like continual movement to really make you appreciate a bit of time to stop and breathe.
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