Wanderlust for the Sake of Wanderlust
I love to wander and travel. But lusting for something “out there,” in some other place, some soul-filling event, seems frivolous to me. Ralph Waldo Emerson agreed. Why not start in your own backyard?
Travel can be awesome. No one needs to be convinced of that. But so can be your backyard.
So can be the hill behind your house, if you explored it, maybe cut a few branches, built a path, and saw where it led you. Maybe your wandering would lead to a nice expansive summit from which you could see your entire living area in a whole new way.
So can be the mountain that you drive by every day and sometimes look up at and admire and wonder what it would be like to be up there, so high, so far away, so seemingly inaccessible. What would it be like, you wonder, to stand next to that radio tower?
So can be the inconspicuous Wilderness Area that is an hour from your home. The one everyone speeds by and hardly notices, the one with red clay, Dr. Suessish rock formations, and stunning desert vistas.
So can be the breathtaking mountain range that is three hours from your house. The one everyone drives by on their way to playground destinations like Mammoth and Tahoe. Maybe that range holds some secrets. Maybe its inaccessibility is its own charm. Maybe you can avoid the crowds and get some time away from everyone, sitting on the shore of an alpine lake, not a soul around, utterly quiet, not an animal scampering about, but just you and the glacier-smoothed granite and the clingy high-altitude vegetation and the icy-clear water and the melting mini-glaciers and the steel-cut blue sky and, of course, your faithful boy, Mumford, sitting next to you.
Do we sometimes suffer the intoxication of foreign lands when we haven’t even fully appreciated our own backyard?
Yes. I was guilty of that. So I did the four things I mentioned above.
I built a path up the hill behind my house that leads to an expansive summit. I hike it every morning with Mumford.
I hiked the three radio tower mountains lining the valley I live in. On the highest I could see from the high desert to the ocean…unbelievable.
I checked out that Dr. Seuss Wilderness Area an hour from me.
And I regularly explore one of the most stunning mountain ranges in North America as often as I can: the Eastern Sierra, a mere three hours from me.
Plus, I doubled down on my actual backyard. I viewed it as my “gym” where I would get my exercise. And I viewed it as my canvas on which I would create. Everyone else was running off to LA Fitness and I stayed home, opened the back door, and created and worked in my own terroir. I studied Feng shui (the Chinese practice that uses energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment…life changing!) and learned what it meant to work in tandem with your land. I learned rock-wall building and irrigation (irritation) and native California vegetation and composting and painted my thumb green. It was a ten-year experiment that is mostly over now but was absolutely enriching. )Here is a before and after.)
Ralph Waldo Emerson criticized American’s infatuation with travel, pre-20th Century. Essentially his critique was wanderlust for wanderlust sake is shallow. It is empty and gratuitous. And I agree. He said, “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.” Yes! If you travel the world over, make sure the beautiful is within you before you go. If you wander your backyard, make sure the beautiful is within you.
A couple years ago I bought a campervan and had visions of travelling all over the southwest US. I would explore the red rocks of Utah, and the canyons of Arizona, and the pueblos of Taos, and the Eastern Sierra in California. A perfect rectangle of adventure. All good. All grand.
But after dipping my toe in a few spots, I’ve changed my aspirations to essentially, “my backyard.” Now I only go to the Eastern Sierra and Carpinteria beach. Just those two. No more. No lusting for that place “over there.” These two hold enough mind-expansion for me, enough adventure, enough God-built beauty and intrigue and marvel to keep me in a state of awe. And that is, for me, the purpose of travel…awe. Hands-thrust-into-the-heavens awe. Head-bowed thank-you-God awe. Flat-footed-gawking awe. And the silent-awe you get from just walking and looking.
Yes, I got an awe-fix when I walked into the duomo of Florence.
Yes, I got an awe-fix when I reached for my high school diploma in the amphitheater of Ephesus.
Yes, I got an awe-fix when viewing Mont Blanc while tandem hang gliding at 10,000 feet. (That’s Chamanix, France, in the sunglasses, thousands of feet down)
But I also got it when I viewed ten years of artwork in my backyard, stood at the summit of the hill behind our house, viewed our valley from the radio tower near our house, and last week when I had that alpine lake moment with Mumford.
Wherever I go, whether near or far, my goal is to “carry the beautiful with me” as Emerson said.
You have such a beautiful backyard, it is an awe moment for me.