Transformation Travel
  • Home
  • Books
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Walking Women 50plus
  • Coaching
  • About
  • Product
  • Home
  • Books
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Walking Women 50plus
  • Coaching
  • About
  • Product
Join the Slow Journalism  movement. See the world from a 2 mile/hour perspective . 
STORIES  are everywhere

Retracing Steps

7/13/2019

4 Comments

 
Dami Roelse
Picture
I’m setting off on a journey to the Himalayas to retrace steps I took both 48 and 14 years ago, and to take steps I couldn’t take then. I want to see how things have changed. 

Forgetting and Letting Go
Since 1971 and 2005 I’ve aged. Aging means losing short-term memory. That means forgetting where you put something and having to retrace your steps to find the thing. Sometimes you don’t find it until months later in an odd place. I found the sunglasses I traveled to the Himalayas with in 2005 in a flower pot under my deck, a year after I had “lost” them. How they ended up there, I will never know. Why did these glasses come back to me? I had moved on, bought cheaper ones readying myself for more losses and let go of the pair. Finding things when you least expect it reveals the mysteries of life. It was the year of a big personal loss in my life and the glasses became a metaphor for life returning even when you don’t expect it.

The Bucket List
My journey to the Himalayas is one of those journeys that rose in my gut. I stood on top of Forester pass in the high Sierras last summer, reveling in my brush with the transcendental as the clouds raced in the sky and the terrain was nothing but awe inspiring, when the voice inside me (I feel the voice in my gut) said: “if you want to see Tibet, do it now, while you still can”. The wish to see Tibet was born after I met Tibetan refugees in India in 1970 and 1971 and fell in love with their presence, their calm ability to roll with what life dealt them. They were the embodiment of detachment I thought then. That wish increased when in 2005 I lived and trekked with local guides of Tibetan descend in Ladakh and saw their way of life with its inherent human flaws in more depth. Ladakh is also called Little Tibet, apparently it’s a replica of Tibetan life and Tibetan landscape and architecture. You could say Tibet has been on my bucket list. I will retrace my steps in Ladakh, revisit the Kathmandu valley where I lived for 2 months in my younger years under the painted eyes of the Swyambu stupa. I’ll walk in the valley from where I hiked to the Mt Everest glacier in 1971; a glacier which has turned from snow and ice to rock and talus. I will visit Tibet, the North side of Everest and walk around Mt Kailash if my body can deal with the high altitude.

The Past 
What happens in almost 50 years to a landscape, a people? Globalization and climate are the biggest changers. What was an unsophisticated trek 50 years ago, our white faces a novelty in the mountain villages, is now a booming tourist industry. An industry the people depend on for survival. We trekked without maps, used only local directives, had no GPS devices, no cellphones, no WhatsApp to communicate with the outside world.  Tibet was elusive closed to us. The people suffered, were oppressed and looked to us to give them what we had: freedom of expression, money to buy our way out of difficult situations, a level of comfort I had not appreciated until I saw their often squalid circumstances. The romance of simple living, of spirituality drew me to them; they only saw what I brought with me: comfort and wealth.

Becoming

There is no going back to what was. Changes abound. I will notice the changes and discover the new. But more than that, I’ll find the changes that have taken place in me. The places will tell me who I’ve become. The young woman on a quest for meaning, the mid-life woman on a journey to get lost in her grief in the mountains, are gone. Who am I now? This journey isn't about losing and letting go, it's about finding a new me. The place will tell me. Tibet has called and I’m answering the call.  

I look forward to your comments below.

Picture
4 Comments
Janet Anderson
7/15/2019 07:53:45 pm

I loved the sunglasses story. Thanks for sharing it. (The rest of the post was clear and appealing.)

Reply
Anne Muth
7/15/2019 08:55:59 pm

A well considered reflection as you prepare yourself for the third and possibly last trek in the Himalayas, Dami. Holding a space for observing the outer changes and the inner developments as you are setting your intentions. I look forward to hearing what you discover as the journey unfolds. Safe travels!

Reply
LIA BYERS
7/27/2019 11:04:32 am

I love this piece Dami, especially the mystery of the sunglasses. Do write more of your experience this time.

Reply
Dami
7/28/2019 12:04:57 am

Thank you Lia. I plan on tracking my inner changes on this journey as well as the outer ones.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Dami

    is an intrepid, energetic transformation traveler. Follow her blogs to see how she does it.​

    Picture
    Picture

    ​thetrek.co

    ​
    For hiking specific blogs check my contributions to TREK magazine via link above

    Categories

    All
    Home Garden
    Mindfulness
    Nature's Lessons
    Pandemic
    Slow Living

    Archives

    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016

    RSS Feed

Transformation-Travel
From the Middle of Nowhere, Southern Oregon, USA

About

Contact Us