From Collective Serenity - Travel, Taste and Truth in Poland and the Baltics

What a morning in a Latvian park, weeks on the road and the Baltics taught me about serenity

It is the second-to-last day of my travels.  I’m at the splendidly cute, A22 hotel in Riga, Latvia, my sixth hotel in my fourth country in three weeks.  After a late and lite breakfast, I take a slow, peace-filled stroll through the park across the street.

It was oddly quiet even though that Sunday morning the park was full of dogwalkers, joggers and bikers.  A cute, clean wooden playground occupied the center of the park and held my attention for several minutes as I slowed to watch little ones soaking up the morning sunshine. Despite the half a dozen or so families making use of its equipment that morning, the playground too was unusually quiet and tame.  Occasionally a group of kids on scooters cutting through the park on sidewalks that zigged and zagged through ancient, towering oak trees would dart past me without so much a shriek, only the whiz of their wheels audible as they passed by.  They too were careful not to break what felt like an unwritten code of conduct here, to move about however one wished in so long as it didn’t disturb the collective serenity of the park goers within. 

 It was as if the universe had turned down the volume on life just low enough so I could take in the ordinary, everyday joy playing out in front of me.  Upon pulling back even further, letting my mind float up and out of that park, I could feel how insanely lucky I was to have taken this exact trip which led me to this exact spot and moment in time.  The takeaways of my travels across Poland and the Baltics, many of which I suspect had yet to be revealed, would go on to leave marks just like this one in ways I couldn’t have planned out, paid for or predicted. The signals we discover by being present and engaged can lift a mood, reinvigorate a journey or even shape where and how we find and feel gratitude forever forward.

Lately, I’ve seen a handful of anti-travel articles pop up making the case that we should be content right where we are, that to travel is to follow someone else’s agenda not our own, that we shouldn’t add more strain to the carbon footprint, that we don’t need to drag our bodies through… jet lag? 

I believe these statement pieces can be narrow minded perspectives on travel treating it as nothing more than a verb.  Travel is more than a transaction. It is a way to move about the world to unlock and spread connection, inspiration and understanding. I am cynical, especially today, of any discourse that syphons us off to our own living rooms, slamming the door shut on experiencing other tastes, cultures and people. 

When embraced with intent, travel initiates a powerful ripple effect reinvigorated by just one, one more a-ha moment, one more uncovered passion, one more cracked open sealed-off heart.  Travel drives progress, economic growth and equity as well as empathy and self-improvement. In a world that seems to be shrinking in on itself with walls, policies and broken alliances, we need every good, capable mind out there imagining and building a more expansive and collaborative world – a collective serenity.  

But to stay home because we’ve written off the benefits of travel as trivial or self-indulgent?  That is to see this spectacularly sprawling, awesome world through but a single window with a perspective only so wide, and worse yet, so dangerously narrow.

[I know not everyone can afford to travel. I’m not shaming anyone without means or opportunity. I’m defending the power of travel as its value has come under attack.]

As I think about my own experience with travel, it has never failed to help me see the world through a grateful pair of fresh eyes.  It’s not that I don’t experience gratitude when I’m at home – I do.  But I think the universe calls us differently – or rather we listen differently – outside of our everyday routines. We give ourselves special permission to let our guards down and to open up our hearts more willingly, precisely because of the newness and fleeting sense of wonder and opportunity that is all about us when we travel. We drift off autopilot and it is then, we not only see more, but we see more deeply and deliberately.   That is the transformative power of travel. That is why travel is a window with a limitless point of view.

I’ve been traveling for almost three weeks now.  I’ve seen historic cities and colorful old towns that have literally been battle tested, rebuilt and reimagined.  I’ve met generous, passionate people whose kindness, small talk and recommendations settled a sometimes-fidgety soul.  I’ve reaffirmed love for familiar tastes through intriguing, local twists on some of my personal favorites like squash blossoms, steak tartare and anchovies.  I’ve catalogued new tastes to seek out on adventures yet to come: veal sweetbreads, smoked herring and beetroot soup.  

More than anything, the last few weeks have reconfirmed, that taste is my compass.  Taste brings me back to my center when I’m lost.  Taste leads me to inspiration when I’m struggling to see past disappointment, discord and the world’s disgusting inequities.  More personally still, taste redefines what can be possible out there in this great big, bountiful world when we are hungry and willing to bite off more.

But taste has its limitations. And at times on this journey, my compass has felt too light, too tone deaf and frivolously trite. Perhaps it’s because I never traveled on the edge of war before and the atrocities of what is going on to a country in this region were eerily and justifiably omnipresent everywhere I went.  There were peaceful protests, city block long murals of solidarity, conversations overheard in workshops, Ukrainian flags flying in prominent places and hung in storefronts and restaurants of every ethnic origin.  There were reminders everywhere I went that no, not all is right. 

 As I pen this, I am desperate to fall back into my comfort zone and write about the best brick oven pizza I’d had all year in Riga at Street Pizza in their Art Deco district, the mouthwateringly delicious grilled cabbage with anchoa (anchovies) I savored every bite of at one of their latest culinary gems to open, Mãsa or the afternoon I spent decompressing over Italian red wine and cute little bowls of tapas at this effortlessly chic wine bar, Vina Bars Garage in the Berga Bazārs district.  But I can’t stop thinking about that park. The one across the street from A22 Hotel, the one that after I did the math, I realized was just 171 miles from the Russian border.

 As I traveled from city to city, it was hard not to wonder in the quiet of the night if these beautiful places and their people would end up being the next target of yet another one of history’s, the world’s greedy, unchallenged, power-hungry egomaniacs.  It ate at me why this never kept me up at night before I traveled to these countries, sat at their tables, laughed with their locals and bought handcrafted winter felt hats and jewelry from their artisan shopkeepers.

But it wasn’t just the scene at the park that played over and over in my brain.  This trip had carried me straight into the heaviest of truths.  One of my first stops in Europe was Auschwitz.  There I paid witness to the depths discrimination and hate can go if left unquestioned.  I saw piles of shoes, of hair, of eyeglasses... I heard account after account of stories that eerily sounded a whole lot like what’s going on in the world today – unaddressed genocide, invasion of liberty, brainwashing and manipulation. 

And I knew then I couldn’t run away from it. 

I knew I couldn’t keep preaching on one hand about travel’s impact – if only we open our eyes to new tastes, perspectives and people – and then come home mute after what I’d seen and felt these last few weeks around wars past and present.  I knew I couldn’t keep talking about how travel breaks us out of our comfort zones and then come back to a living room I choose out of convenience and fear to insulate from the evening news.  I knew I couldn’t keep talking purpose and calling and then resist the urge to write with the full capacity of my head and heart about the value of every single human especially the marginalized, oppressed and forgotten. 

I knew too I wasn’t just lying awake at night terrified for the Baltics and Poland.  I lied awake terrified for American women, minorities, my family, my city… my country.

Facing a roaring internal conflict I couldn’t seem to quiet, I thought at first this might be the only trip I ever take where Taste wasn’t going to be enough.  Would I instead have to look beyond the unforgettable flavors, bold creativity and warm hospitality of these countries to find a different route to clarity deep within?

As I turn inward what I find surprises me.   The antidotes to the fear, indignation and restlessness I’d been facing were, in fact, the unforgettable flavors, bold creativity and warm hospitality of not just Poland and the Baltics, but any place I had travelled, ever. When all those collected and preserved experiences came together, they created a stoic sanctuary of resilience and inspiration deep inside me.  Here among these beautiful moments I could tap collective serenity of my own making  – the Taste I’d been curating since first stepping out in the world.  And so once again just as it has so many times before, Taste, my compass would be more than enough to lead me back out, through and... home.