Travelling a lot can mean, among other things, a lot of diversity among the places that we go to. In my current lifestyle, I often stay either in the wilderness, functional and culturally standardised cities, and large towns or historical places. When I trade from a more extended stay to my very dynamic patterns, in one of these to another, in the first 24 hours I often find myself wondering how it is possible to live happily “in such a place, so _______” and fill in as applicable: remote, poor, rural, populated, quiet, full of rules, noisy, etc. It is my natural reaction to the need to readapt myself to the new rhythm, to the new flow and energy of the place where I arrive, and a certain attachment to the comfort that began to feel in the previous place, which also seemed to me “so ___” at first. This contraction in travel is my one of the most interesting idiosyncrasy of mine since I travel precisely to promote expansion and when I catch myself in these moments I take a deep breath because I know it will too pass, and this helps me to go through the initial discomfort of not feeling integrated. And where this works particularly well, and with a special and almost shamanic palate, it is in the chaos.
See also: To gain awareness, the highest prize of travelling
I recently arrived in Marrakesh from an immersion in the nature of Sierra Nevada. Stunned by the impact of so much bubbling of human life in my senses I felt that contraction I am familiar with: “I had forgotten how chaotic this place is. Chaotic, chaotic, cha-o-tic…” This word echoed in my head, and it was enough to fill my lungs with air infused with anarchy, that the chaos that lives in me began to feel at home, and unobstructed and I to remind myself that the magnetism to inhabit historical places like Marrakech, in reality, is not explained, it is lived. Chaos is exciting because it can provide a lot of clarity. For me, unlike order and structure based on the needs of life in society, in turmoil there is room for the two poles of each spectrum and for everything in the middle of each duality, and this allows me to experience a lot of freedom of action and of thought, and to unify parts of it in me.
That initial contraction was an invitation, and I breathed Marrakesh, Intense of emotion and temperament infused with Moorish restraint and majesty. I accepted the invitation to expansion, to lose myself in the meandering, labyrinthine streets of the Medina, where the immeasurable power of the radiated energy of every interpersonal contact is exponentially increased. There the encounters happen spontaneously and life blossoms unconsciously, in absolute contrast to the echo of the calls of the mosques for prayer and its irrefutable invitation to introspection. At the same time, and right next to it lives the nomadic spirit of the Tuaregs and Berbers and the imminence of the adventure, an oasis of calm in the orange horizon where the desert wind blows the yellow of the long rows of dunes. The chaos, and the endless sky of possibilities, starring in the dark night of desert mystery, and finally the refreshing appease of the mint of my first tea in the Jemaa El-Fna square, and the certainty that all is well. Ahh, bread in Chaos, breath out calmness.
Liliana Ascensão is a tour leader at The Wanderlust, get to know some of her trips.
Photo: Jemaa El-Fna Square (credits: Miriam Augusto)
