The Call Back
We all remember the first time we dipped our toe into a new ocean, set foot on a new continent or stood at the base of a monument we had only ever seen before in photographs. Unraveling the mysteries of a new place as we explore it through our own eyes for the very first time is all-consuming and exhilarating. All at once we’re like sponges and supercomputers, absorbing and processing every new sight, smell and sound. Head swiveling from side to side in an effort to snap and catalog every frame in the stories unfolding in front of us.
The first time we visit a city we don’t always know if we’ll be back so game on as we try to soak up as much of it as we can in the expiring time we have there. This race against the clock creates a motivating and palpable sense of urgency. Every choice we make has both a compelling benefit and an opportunity cost. Some will let their hearts and noses guide them through unscripted, elastic agendas relinquishing what feels like full control to their host city to nudge them toward their next adventure or taste. Others, will have a predetermined hit list, backed up by meticulously timed reservations and totally counterintuitive quasi-programmed free time. I am the latter so I can poke fun.
Regardless of our method, all of us want to be struck by travel’s mystical power in some way and to some end. And as time passes, all of us too will find ourselves comparing what we’ve taken in here to other places we’ve been or will go, with expectations we held since the idea to first visit popped into our heads, and up against what others said they experienced. None of these inclinations to compare should be judged wrong, it’s just that something really interesting takes place inside of us when we travel to a place for the very first time. We unavoidably, imperceptibly slide back and forth between being uber-present and uber not.
So what happens when we return to a city or place we love again? It seems to open its arms and welcome us back in a curiously personal and magnificently resonant way. My favorite places to go back to are those that somehow intuitively meet us just where we are. They capture our full attention and grip hold of us. Like magic, they orchestrate through circumstance and coincidence a more intimate experience with their people and places.
It no doubt helps that when we visit a place we’ve been before, the urgency to take it all in lifts just enough to give us the space we need to more deeply feel what we see and hear around us. A return visit while still all-consuming and exhilarating in its own way does not often feel as frenetic or fleeting. And this distinction when fully embraced, feels like a hard-to-ignore gift from the universe to those who through good fortune, luck or fate find their way back to a place they love.
When I was younger with fewer stamps in my passport, I believed it was nothing short of absurd with so many places in the world to see to take the time, spend the money or put forth the energy to return to a city again. In looking back as I got more comfortable trading my numbers game of countries visited for places visited that actually stirred up something inside of me, I discovered a better way to travel. Untethered from my own self-inflicted vanity stats, I began to experience the value of travel with intent and more often than not that meant simply answering the call of the places that called me back.
