Aug 45 min read

ON THE WAY

A man in a white tee-shirt stares at distant mountains — Sometimes you need to get lost to be found

I have two competing scenarios about my life in my head at the same time.

One version says that I travel a lot. I’m back and forth to the States at least once a year and move around a bit while I’m there. I’ve taken flights here and back and have sailed on the Queen Mary 2 so many times that I’ve literally lost count (I think it’s 9 or 10).

Right now I’m on a TGV train leaving Paris for Biarritz and the Atlantic coast, about as far southwest as you can get in France before you hit the Pyrenees mountains and Spain.

I’ve been a few places in France:

Lisieux once, home of Saint Theresa, the Little Flower, who I feel a strong affinity for. Mont Saint Michel once, with my eldest daughter, Nicole. I’ve been to Giverny, home of Claude Monet a couple of times. And I’ve been to my good friend’s house in Saint Pierre-de-Maillé several times.

I’ve also been to London a few times, and a day trip to Winchester Cathedral from off the ship. And to Hamburg, Germany to catch the QM2.

But my first overseas trip was way back in 1973, when my grandmother took my brother Tommy and I to the USSR – that’s right, the Soviet Union! A 9-day trip at the height of the détente between the United States and Russia, visiting Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg once more).

Seems like a lot.

But really, I stay in Paris, where I feel like I am always on vacation.

My wise brother, who lives in the Adirondack mountains, once told me, “I live where I would go on vacation, so I never have to go on vacation.” True.

But even though that is true for me vis-à-vis Paris, still, I want to get out of there from time to time.

But to do that, I have to overcome the inertia.

It takes me so much effort to get ready to go, to plan, to get out the door, I dread the idea of traveling. I like the places I go to. I just dislike the getting there. Once I’m on the train, or in the airport through security, or in the car (the easiest way to travel, unfortunately) I’m fine and glad to be on the way.

It’s just getting on the way that is difficult for me (and perhaps for others?)

The idea of travel is alluring, romantic, exciting. An adventure awaits! the travel posters say, forgetting to mention the possibilities of traffic jams on the way to the airport, lost luggage, tourist traps, not to mention the missed connections and uncertain weather.

Ah! But there’s the rub, isn’t it? The possibility of a mishap, mistake or something going wrong. The hesitation (uncertainty? dread?) that comes when I’m about to go out the door is palpable

Yet, some of my best travel stories, my most interesting travel memories, are the result of when something went wrong on the way!

Good friend Robert Moss says, “If nothing goes wrong, you don’t have much of a story.”

How true.

It’s the dilemma, the setback, the obstacle that intervenes in an otherwise smooth trip that turns an ordinary event into an adventure. Then the event, when it is softened by time, gives us the magical adventure story.

Even if the ending is you survived and lived to tell the tale.

There would be no tales of brave Ulysses without the series of misfortunes that caused his long journey home.

Would Ishmael’s story of sailing around the world be interesting without the insane Ahab and (of course) Moby Dick? A boring sea voyage would not be much of a story. Ending the trip floating on Queeque’s coffin?

Now that’s a story!

Or who would want to hear about poor loser, Jerry Lundegaard if he had not staged a botched kidnapping of his wife in Fargo?

You get the idea.

My first trip overseas in many years was in 2004. I thought I would surprise my then-husband, Mark with a Christmas present: a 10-day tour all around Italy. Nice idea, right?

But I booked the tour, not airfare, because I thought I had enough frequent flier miles for two tickets to Rome.

I was wrong.

I only had enough miles to get us both to London. No problem. Why not make a 10-day trip into a 21-day adventure! Why keep things simple, when you can make things difficult and complicated.

So here was my plan:

Fly to London and spend 3-4 days there. Then take the Eurostar to Paris, where we would spend 5 days. Then a train to Rome, except I didn’t want to do an overnight train. You wouldn’t see anything of the countryside. So it was a daytime train to Zürich, Switzerland stay overnight there and then take a train to Italy the next day. I wanted to see the Alps and go through the Gotthard Pass.

Well, with this elaborate travel itinerary, we set off, and two things happened.

1) We were totally exhausted by the time we got to Rome. Not only had we traveled by plane, taxi and train plus a ton of walking, but we each brought a suitcase the size of a small Volkswagen, which we had to lug on and off all of these conveyances.

2) I totally and completely fell in love with Paris, in rainy, cold, gray November!

It was the beginning of my love affair with Paris! We wandered the streets lost and cold and drank in the mystery and the beauty of this complicated and confusing city. I had to know more.

From then on, whenever I had vacation time, I looked at other places, but I most often ended up back in Paris. And when I wasn’t there, I was reading about Paris, listening to Paris Café music, looking at pictures, watching movies and TV shows and otherwise manifesting a life in Paris, long before I was able to move here.

In fact, it was 13 years, between that first visit and my move.

To sum up: when you follow your good despite resistance, setbacks become great stories, mistakes become blessings.

Take a chance. Listen to your intuition. Make mistakes. Travel is a great opportunity to get out of your comfort zone – off your “comfort zone couch” as I say in Prosperity Now! and “In the Flow of Life” where good things happen – even when they seem “bad.”

Let me know what adventures come out of your mistakes!

Johnny

I am available to do private tours of Paris, based on my book, Paris Histories and Mysteries.

You can get life-guidance using my book, Prosperity Now! A 12-Week Journey to the Life of Your Dreams.

I also do general life-coaching for individuals or in small groups.

I do amazing I Ching readings and dream interpretations.

To work with me on A Course in Miracles one-on-one or in small group, write to me at prosperitynowlifeofdreams@yahoo.com

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