“The past is prologue.”
Emotions house memories. They can remind us of past experiences, drudging up ones we would prefer to forget. Yet they can also bring to mind the best of times spent. Walking along the streets of Seoul, my steps feel familiar. I am reminded of nine months ago in Vienna, Austria — in similar weather, yet a different part of the world, an entire continent away.
It has been some time since I have been immersed in a completely new environment. It’s not that traveling somewhere unknown is a foreign concept to me by any means — although all the blogs, TripAdvisor research and advice from fellow travelers cannot prepare you for the experience.
And I have forgotten what it feels like.
I was out of sorts arriving by subway around midnight on my first night in Korea.
After over an hour on the train from the airport, it took 30 minutes in below freezing weather to get a cab from the subway station to my hotel. Although it was only a quarter mile away, Google Maps couldn’t find a suitable walking path and I wasn’t ready to trek through an unknown city along darkened streets in the middle of the night.
Fast forward 48 hours later and I’m riding the subway with little use of a map, walking the streets at night back to my hotel and feeling all around pretty comfortable.
If I was here for a week, I’d probably be right at home.
I had forgotten how quickly the unfamiliar becomes familiar.
What I am reminded of more so than my time in Austria is this process, that of becoming familiar through the uncomfortableness of learning and newness of adapting, and how — given time — it always leads us back to being settled once again.
Our inward journey is not unlike this. Simple daily practices can create a feeling of familiarity and centeredness that is neither dependent on nor affected by outside factors. It is akin to the eye of the storm whereby the center is the calmest place in the midst of chaos.
Music is one example of a “thing” that can bring you back to yourself. I have also found writing and meditation to be of a similar vein. Done consistently, these can ground us in an ungrounded life.
So after two full days in Seoul, I am comfortable with my environment, know where to go for a variety of street food, which shopping areas I prefer over others, and what places are left on my list to visit before the end of my trip —
Those destinations may still be unfamiliar but the path to reach them is not.
I have walked it before.
I still don’t ultimately know where this journey will lead…
…or how much longer I will travel it or how far I have yet to go, but one thing is certain.
The steps of the past lead me forward to an unknown, but hopeful future.
And I for one wouldn’t have it any other way.
Till our roads cross again.