Constantly Threading Our Traveling Tapestry!

Places have the capacity to inspire us if we allow ourselves to stop and pause long enough to take in the energy that they offer!

For some it’s the magnificence of Rome, or Paris, or London or even New York that fills them with a sense of love, energy and the passion for life! For others it might be the ancient tactile histories of the Orient, of Central or Eastern Europe, or perhaps even of South America that moved them to new heights of self and of personal realization. Then there are those who take in all that they encounter no matter where their travels might take them! I personally tend to fall into the latter of categories if for no other reason than to say that I’ve always found it rather beneficial to stop myself along the way and to really absorb the fabric of a place when I’m there!

Life tends to move us along at a rather fast pace if we so allow and when we don’t make the effort to stall that pace at times, we just might miss out on some detail, some architecture, the colors or even the scents that for their presence have the capacity to fill us with a new sense of presence! No matter where we go or who we encounter, we can either move through our paces blinded by our own sense of the urgency of whatever the day of our lives demands, or we can allow ourselves to stop briefly and be changed by all we feel and sense!

In my own travels so far in life I’ve had the experience of visiting the western shores of Southern California, the Deserts of Nevada and Arizona, the rolling hills of New York State, the expanse offered by the Canadian cities of Montreal and Old Quebec and all the beauty of what lies in-between! I’ve risen to the Highlands of Nova Scotia and of course traveled throughout my birth and home Bay State of Massachusetts! Throughout all of it and more I think of all that I still have yet to visit and to benefit from in my life!

It’s amazing how memories can become fixtures upon our soul! You know, there isn’t one single place that I’ve ever visited that has not imprinted some positive footprint of its energy onto my spirit! Sometimes we can be moved to the point of wanting to make a place our home due to the impact it paints onto our lives. Salem Massachusetts is such a place for me! As a child when my Father first brought me to visit Salem I recall riding with him around the city and being impressed at that age with the noticeable and colored history that was so proudly displayed at virtually every street corner from the Witch History Museum to what has commonly now become known as Gallows Hill. Granted, I have always been a sucker for our patriotic colonial historical roots and fewer places bestow a sense of that history in our America like Boston and Salem! This is why I am now going to be calling Salem my permanent home in a short while!

On my first return to Salem since my childhood days now many years ago, it immediately added to the color of my sense of the quality of life! Its energy and the pleasant local people and the spirited presence of its character was now enough to convince me that this WAS the place that I very much wanted to call home in my life!

It’s important in my view to allow yourself to become fond of the habit of looking at the positive character of a place before you allow yourself to be unduly swerved by any of the few not-so-positives which lets face it, all places do contain some.

It’s a critical necessity for me now in my life to allow myself to try to remember to absorb the entire landscape of that place before I cast any judgment onto its image in my mind! Our views of the people that we encounter as a matter of fact on the whole are the same way!

I remember a conversation I had with an elderly neighbor whose name was “Hilding” when I was a child. He and his wife had at one point enrolled into a tour group that was planning to visit London. When they finally arrived and got all settled they all started to take part in the tours. He was suddenly struck by the Tour Guide who staunchly and emphatically exclaimed that “there were to be no independent side trips!”

Well, eventually inspiration grabbed hold and this bit of a rebellious Swedish Gentleman along with his wife and several other as rebellious compatriots all took off and started visiting some of the side streets of London on their own! As the evening darkened and after they had stopped at many of the local shops along their way, they eventually ended up visiting a small and rather Tudor Styled Tavern somewhere in the City where he related they had dined on the finest meal of their entire trip and then spent that entire evening singing and exchanging tales of America and London with some local souls at the time! This is what I mean by allowing yourself to take in the entire landscape of a place before you etch any judgment of its color into your mind!

I also remember riding through a rather colorful and down-trodden appearing section of San Diego with the friend I was visiting there with at the time. He was in the process of telling me how this section had been recently likened to certain sections of Los Angeles, another city by the way along with Hollywood that I have visited in the past. As I listened to him my attention was wandering to the local people, the shops, the business of the streets and the homes where life was always moving along. To my mind I couldn’t help but to think on how these people call this place their home. To them, this was the center of their lives, the place that gave them a sense of not only belonging but a place where many would live out their dreams!

I never cast a negative pale on any place due to discreet and choice opinions because as I’ve learned over the years, there are always life-changing lessons to be taken in no matter where you might find yourself, or who it might be you may find yourself coming face to face with!

So as I look forward along the path of my life I remember that reminding myself to stop, to look and to take in the breath of some place and its people are as important to my own character as are the virtues of placing pleasantries before posturing opinion!

Always remember that as you’re looking forward along your path of life to also take in the entirety of that place where you find yourself right now!

It just might provide you and your day with something absolutely magnificent!

Love, light and brightest of blessings!

WD Allan

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WD Allan, WDAllan.com

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