In the Middle of Nowhere

Travelling means leaving your usual form behind and survive until you have found your new or other form. Our way of leaving our comfort zone and change our surroundings and life style is a relative simple and easy one. Still many friends and relatives „think“ that our divided way of life between to „homes“ is very unattractive and complicated. Of course our bi-monthly train-journey is a „long“ and complicated one. But then, what about the friends who drive a 1000 km to reach their French country house? That romantic cottage in the middle of nowhere. For the bakery and groceries you have to drive for an hour…Bonjour, Monsieur&Madame, „where on earth are you“?
So, we do not live in the middle of nowhere, only the travelling means finding yourself between places. In the course of the years we get aquainted, learn how to deal with disruptions, delays. Still any train-journey, even a short one, keeps full ofsurprises, not necesarily disappointing. Without the covering of the usual form we feel and we are strangers. Strangers among people who would prefer to deny that they too are strangers. You can hear that when they speak aloud and not only when using their mobile phone. Here is also the reason why so many prefer to travel by car. Their car functions as a small scale mobile home. In your car your loss of usual form is balanced or recovered.
In a train your extended self is in your luggage, coat, the seat you occupie. Don’t dare to touch me there! Comparable to: here the world is My Priority, My Freedom to speed. Like in trains people can behave as owners or occupiers of the entire compartment. In unconscious denial of the strangeness of their unfitting behaviour. While being on the go means a break in your usual form, moving from one place to another, moving in between forms. This evokes tension, as we long to arrive at our destination. The less patient we are, the more travelling is tiring. Travelling is a challenging but difficult art of loosing form and move around in formlessness. That’s why travelling is an exercise in creativity. To create means daring to displace ourselves as strangers in the middle of nowhere.