Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia (noun) Origin: Greek | U·de·‘mOn·E·a  The contented happy state you feel when you travel.

“It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.”
― Dale Carnegie

When I travel, I am able to stop thinking about myself. I am able to remove myself from the daily grind.  All thoughts of work, stress, anxiety, irritations, etc. fly out the window.

I feel happy walking anonymously through cities and the countryside.  Watching people, talking to strangers, viewing normal folks doing normal things. 

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” –Mark Twain

I love imagining what they are thinking and how they got to where they are.  I love even more the realization that no matter where I am, I am no different than the people I meet are in regards to the basics of life.  

My to-do list for today:
– Count my blessings
– Practice kindness
– Let go of what I can’t control
– Listen to my heart
– Be productive yet calm
– Just breathe

These things make me happy.  These things put everything in my world back into perspective and help me balance myself. I let go of my expectations on others, but even more importantly, I let go of the expectations I have put upon myself.  Traveling is how I learn to breathe again.

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain

contented travelers: tgeriatrix; salwa; aletta; sustainabilitea; sue; chris; rarasaur; nancy; woollymuses; david; coreen; cauldrons

Vemödalen

 (noun) Origin: Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows | The frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.

“The frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist — the same sunset, the same waterfall — which can turn a unique subject into something hollow and pulpy and cheap.”

ETYMOLOGY: From the Swedish word vemod which means “tender sadness, pensive melancholy” and then combined with Vemdalen, the name of a Swedish town. Swedish place names are the source of IKEA’s product names — the original metaphor for this idea was that these clichéd photos are a kind of prefabricated furniture that you happen to have built yourself.

“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” — Henri Cartier-Bresson

Kathmandu,NepalCape Town S.A from helicopter

Famous Places: Lookoom; Danee; Sidd; pedmar; marta; streets; sarah; crossings; littlemiss; PCOS; roberta; Salsa; Monkeystale

City Scapes ~ Damn Sam, Where you been?

“There’s something about arriving in new cities, wandering empty streets with no destination. I will never lose the love for the arriving, but I’m born to leave.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

Whenever I get travel weary, all I have to do is look back on the past 12 years and that crazee wanderlust lights it torch and blinds me once again.  I have been called a vagabond, a gypsy, homeless in theory, among others.  However, the words used would lead one to believe that I do not actually have a home.  Anyone who knows me, knows that no matter where I lay my hat, Spokane is my home.  I just have a natural urge to travel.  I love the food, the sights, the drink, the sounds.

As much as I love to wander and roam… to me there’s really no better place than home.  Until I am ready to go again. It’s the only real addiction I have.

“The world is full of wonderful things you haven’t seen yet. Don’t ever give up on the chance of seeing them.” ~J.K. Rowling

“Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.” ~ Ray Bradbury

“You’re not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is where we are not… No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

“There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t sit still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest; Their’s is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.”
~Robert Service

Wanderlust:  Angeline; amoralegria; usfman; fandango; henhouselady; blindzanygirl; footloose; mudgha; monkey

PSA – Animals are wild.

Just finished a little trip to Cape Town. Wining and dining with a significant amount of walking, talking, visiting people and animals alike.

Saw penguins in abundance and dang are they as cute in person as they ever were on Wild Kingdom!!

Saw chickens.

Saw a couple donkeys.

AND Saw seals as well.  At first was super disappointed because I couldn’t get a good view of them in the water.

Then suddenly one of my friends said, “Hey, the seals are back on the cement behind the restaurant!”

I immediately jump up and run back to where the seal is.  I’m a super cautious person and I know not to get too close to wild animals. So I peek around the corner of the building and there he is.. a passive seal, laying like a giant oil spill behind the fish delivery truck.

I snap a couple pictures of the lazy seal and start to walk back to our table.  Then lo and behold…on the other side of the lazy seal is a beautiful massive seal sunning on the rocks behind the delivery truck.

I carefully walk past lazy seal who does not even bat an eye.  I get some amazing pictures and now contented, decide to return to my table.

As I turn around, lazy seal is now standing tall on his flippers just staring at me.  Still on the other end of the delivery truck but standing up..and as tall as I am..and just staring at me!!  This photo does NOT do this seal justice!

I realize now there were a multitude of options I could have taken but at the time there was really only one option in my vision.

That option was to return the way I came. His back was too me and if I move slowly.. no loud sounds .. I’d be ok. I mean, he was super nice when I passed him the first time.. what could go wrong.

I slowly approached him (did not cross my mind this might cause an animal to think I was stalking IT!). I get directly to his backside as he is eyeing me over his shoulder.  Suddenly he leaps in the air and rotates to face me (WHO KNEW SEALS COULD LEAP!!!) and barks. His bark may or may not have been worse than his bite but I will never know.

I have experienced fear in my life and even thought I had known terror a time or two.  I was wrong. This day.. with this seal.. I felt for the very first time.. sheer, blind-white terror.  I remember some of the details, but many were restated and even re-enacted by my friends who were with me.

I screamed..  I ran.. I ran blindly.. I fell.. I fell with abandon.. I think I was still running and screaming.. even from a horizontal position.

I finally stood up. Seal was forgotten and apparently gone.  My hands were bleeding.. my shoulder was bleeding.. my forehead was bleeding.  My ring finger on my left hand was no longer aligned top to bottom.  I still felt no pain.  I was fixated on my finger and the random position it was in.

A friend’s friend’s son was like, “That don’t look right!”  I looked at his dad and flatly said, “Put it back.”  He asked, “Uh, what?”  Me: “Put IT back where it was… MY FINGER.. JUST PUT IT back.” He asked if I was sure.. according to others I said yes. He did. I am whole..a little more learned.. and healing nicely I think.

public service announcement: DO NOT PLAY WITH WILD ANIMALS

*no matter how docile they appear!

I’m on top of the world looking down on….

I feel like I’m on top of the world. Honestly, I feel like I’ve climbed a very giant mountain, and I’m just standing right on top with my arms wide open and breathing rarified air.  Shania Twain

I have had many opportunities to climb to the top of things (or fly over if the climb is beyond my limits.  I recently took my first helicopter ride in South Africa and climbed all over Table Mountain.  I hope you enjoy.

 

Daily Post Atop Challenge – Some of my favorites

Trivial Mind, Starlight, mama, OHM, At home, witty, bend, Albina, hudson , intent, jaspas, changing, geriatrix, Cees, Lago, ladylee, wonderful, thirdperson