Lessons Learned Over Lavender Lemonade
A beautiful blend of art and nature at the entrance to the Blue Mountain Lavender Farm in Lowden, Washington.
The difference between traveling alone and traveling in company is your level of openness. To introspection, to serendipitous encounters, to learning and growth, to spontaneous connections with friendly folks you may never meet again...all that and a whole lot more when you're flying solo.
The difference between loneliness and solitude is longing vs. the absence of it. Loneliness is a longing to be where you aren't, to be with who you aren't. Solitude is being comfortably and gratefully out of touch – away from "it all." A wise woman once said, "Being solitary is being alone well."
The difference between the reality of a place or thing and the level of awesome you experience with it depends on many unique factors and how they're weaved together by fate...a roll of the dice, if you will. Your precise physical, mental, and emotional states, the weather, the temperature, your expectations, the people around you all play a role in determining the condition of your experience.
I was having a really tough time my first few hours in Boise. Physically, mentally, emotionally...I was all out of whack, and it kicked off my very first visit on a particularly low note. And by no doing of Boise's. But then I bopped around town a bit, got pleasantly lost in graffiti-covered Freak Alley, found a friendly bodega, and before the day was through, I was digging Boise so much, I deemed it a place I could totally live someday. I even added it to my list of "Towns I could totally live in."
Before I went to Paris, I was told by many that I just had to go to The Louvre. "You just have to, and you have to see the Mona Lisa." That could be cool, I thought. So I did, and it ended up being the one thing I could've lived without doing during my time in France. I knew it while I was still there in the museum. I know it's this marvelous, monumental place that holds all these important, irreplaceable works of art, but to me, it felt like a dud. It just didn't grab me. I felt like I was missing something.
Since then, I've filed The Louvre away as a place I had no desire to return to. There's nothing to see, nothing for me at The Louvre. And I'd recommend at least 32 other Parisian places before telling anyone to go there. BUT…therein lies my main point. My one experience doesn't necessarily dictate the reality of any place or situation. In the case of The Louvre, my experience was shaped by unique circumstances: excessive crowds, an underlying desire to be outdoors, an eagerness to explore Paris with my hands, feet, and mouth, yet there, I found myself in a place where I couldn't touch or taste anything. Plus, I was surrounded by so many of those antique Roman Renaissance paintings featuring winged angels, and I was never particularly taken by that kind of art. But a hundred other people could've had a hundred different experiences of the same place on the same day. Recommendations, advice, personal interpretations are all skewed by individual experience.
But here's a twist. I recently learned that The Louvre holds a few ancient artifacts that I'd really love to see someday. And it turns out the museum has entire wings I'd never set foot in, some containing antiques from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Iran. They also have a "Touch Gallery" designed for feeling your way through fine art. All things I'm quite intrigued by and all of which I've interpreted as a personal invitation to experience The Louvre once more to see if it can be more than I initially believed it to be.
So what's to be learned from this? When people say, "I loved The Louvre" or "I hated The Tower of Terror," they're really saying that they loved or hated their experience of it. And that could very well be subject to change if we allow ourselves to be so openminded.
And that's another thing that can be learned from this: let's give ourselves permission to change our minds. Just because you've always hated Florida, pickles or Carol from HR, doesn't mean you always have to. I've read that one of the biggest mistakes people make in relationships is that they stop getting to know one another. They pigeonholed each other in these ideas of what they once were, instead of appreciating the evolution of each other.
Perspective is a very powerful thing. It can define our reality. It can shape the way we live, hear, see…our experience of all things. Through our tinted lenses, we don't necessarily see things, cultures, people or their actions, exactly as they are. Sometimes it's to our benefit—other times, our detriment.
I'd set myself up for success the day I took the photos above because I decided to find the Blue Mountain Lavender Farm just outside of Walla Walla, Washington, on a whim. I rarely deviate from my road-trip itineraries, but on this particular day, spontaneity swept me up and led me astray in the best possible way. I was feeling free and in control, calm and limitless. My energy felt perfectly matched with that of this family-run farm and its seemingly endless lanes of lavender. I had new experiences there—I love new experiences! I cut my own lavender; I tasted lavender lemonade, I roamed and wandered and took pictures and reflected. It was a beautiful experience. I highly recommend creating an experience all your own there. And everywhere that speaks to you.
