With movement, change, interaction,
We learn
Seeing the world with new eyes,
Understanding things we never saw before.
Through shared experiences we bond, finding new meanings for "togetherness"
Friends, family, strangers, as One
Things in common, drawing us together
Transcending barriers both social and physical.


Lets get in the car
Put on the Black Keys in the background
Driving over gravel
Kids playing with a white dog on the side of the road
Passing an old friends house.


We go through life as gatherers
Gaining knowledge, friends, memories.
We gather most during times of change
Collecting that which is new to us.
Travel provides change,
Gives us what we are missing,
Allows us to clear our heads,
Inspires us with outside influences.
Without travel, nothing is new, nothing is unfound, nothing is left.
How can we learn if we see the world from one perspective?
We are taught that to find truth we need to see all sides of a story.
We should seek to find truth through seeing all sides in life.
Travel provides us insight
Gives us the ability to experience the lives of others
Informs us of the previously unknown
Shows us that which we have never seen before
Allows us to see the sides we did not know existed
Fulfilling the paradigm taught to us as children,
Providing things to gather.


7:22 pm. Speed limit: 35.
The seat belt is too high and my chair is too far back.
Heading downtown
Stans records
One way streets
Turn around, got lost
On the highway
Banged-up guardrail, thats not a good sign.


Travel
It stirs each individual life
Brings back elements that settled to the bottom of our consciousness
Introduces us to new parts of The Great Puzzle Of The Human Experience
Creating an amalgamation that becomes an identity.
Forging our friendships
Shaping our personalities
Creating our memories.


7:42 pm. Speed limit: 40.
Finally moved the seat belt down.
It started raining.
Memorial Park
I dont think this is the right place
$300 fine: littering
Turned a little late, almost hit a stone wall
Missed the turn for the cemetery.
Grey house, teal shutters
Blue chevy pickup.
Driving in circles
This is one of those neighborhoods that tricks you.
Stranded.
Trapped in a cul-de-sac filled development.


Travel inspires us -
Reinforces our desire for knowledge
Helps us to love what we do not love
Alters the courses of our lives.
It makes us passionate -
Drives us to pursue what interests us
Points us to new ideas
Allows us to reshape our perspectives
Both changing and sealing our fates.


Those people are watching us
Theyre going to call the cops
Probably not
There are Christmas lights on that house
Its May. Take those down.


Does all travel change us?
A commute to work, repeated day in and day out
Seemingly unchanging
The same background, but with new interactions.
Like using one set for two plays,
The experiences are different though the setting is the same.
Time has passed, changing the very nature of the moment.
Each day a different place in time, a different place in our lives.
Seeing and interacting with different characters, different personalities.


7:49 pm. Speed limit: 20.
Made it to the cemetery, finally.
That dog is staring at us
Trees line the road
Why is there a house here?
A sign reads No Dogs Allowed.
Where are we?
Lost so many times today.


Motion, Change, Travel.
The merit of travel depends not on its length.
Canoe trips on the river
Elevator rides to the top floor
Flights across oceans
Highway drives to nowhere
It doesnt always matter where we go, just that we are going.


8:03 pm. Speed limit: 25
Current driving speed: 45
Stop sign ahead.
In the wrong lane
No, this is a one way street
Were just going the wrong way
A car double parked in the middle of the intersection
Pedestrians walking in the rain.


Travel builds relationships
Shared experiences
Interdependency
Cohabitation
Acting as bonds between us.
Coming to know the unknown together,
Seeing unexpected places and people,
Things well never see again.
You ask if travel can be meaningful
How can it not be so?


8:16 pm. Speed limit: 30.
Heading home.
Why are we stopped? Its a green light.
My old dance studio is around here somewhere.
Rain rain go away, come again some other day
Lightning flashes.
I used to play tennis against that wall with my mother as a child.
Pulling into the driveway
Sprinting inside to get out of the rain
Finally home.


Author's Note: Sorry i ran out of space in the author's note box. Anyway, this was originally written as an application for a travel course on the beat poets. The assignment was just to do a write up on (and this is such an unbelievable paraphrase, the prompt was 2 pages long) what are the merits of travel, if there are any? it's unedited and therefore unfinished. Originally it has 2 fonts that alternate stanza by stanza, because this was originally written as 2 separate pieces that I then spliced together. The closest i could get to that effect is the italics, which is awkward because some of the words actually need to be italicized. Also, its supposed to be aligned to the left, because i have some fun with formatting and indentation, but you lose all of that with this center-alignment thing. meh whatever.