Roads Less Traveled: A Journey of Roots and Wings
“Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it.” - Eudora Welty
Life is a series of highways and backroads, alleys and subways—at least for those of us willing and brave enough to show up. The interstate will certainly get you to some destination, maybe even faster, but you'll miss so much of what shapes us: adventure and surprise, newly discovered sites, sweet pictorial moments, and random encounters that evolve into lifelong friendships. In travel, we learn that wrong turns, missed flights, and delayed trains teach us more about ourselves—and how to find our way back to ourselves—than any self-help book or therapy session ever could.
Delta Roots
I grew up in Clarksdale, a small town in the Mississippi Delta perhaps best known for its Blues history and its treasure trove of storytellers and writers. Our small town was one big "family" built on trust and loyalty, where neighbors' unlocked doors served as gateways to personal libraries filled with rare books, newspaper clippings, and sometimes manuscripts by locals taking a whirl at their own novels. Tennessee Williams spent time in Clarksdale—actually in the same neighborhood where I lived as a child—and writers like John Grisham held book signings and lectures in our small town library.
Rooted in this world of storytellers and books, I gravitated toward many writers, but I discovered Ernest Hemingway in my high school creative writing course, thanks to a suggestion by my teacher, Mary Thompson. I connected with his short, direct language and his dreamy travels to the Caribbean, where he built a life filled with fishing adventures and friends—all captured in masterpieces like The Old Man and the Sea. In time, I would coincidentally (or perhaps because of some mystic creative seed) find much of my adult life and work in the Caribbean too.
Havana: A Second Home
Havana, in particular, became a full life complete with a bicycle, a local beautician, and frequent trips to the nearby outdoor market for organic fruits and vegetables grown on farms 30-50 miles outside the city and hauled in by truck daily. As an introverted-extrovert, I made an effort to befriend many Cubans as well as ex-pats from Canada and Europe—mostly journalists and photographers on assignment in the Caribbean. I became so familiar with Havana that I know its signless city streets like the back of my hand, and through countless experiences, I feel completely and wholeheartedly at home in this land.
There's no shortage of music, performing arts, and visual arts on that funky island, and the pace is wonderfully slow—clocks dismissed in favor of organic rhythms, with meetings and dinners lingering way past midnight. In the early 2000s, it was the perfect place to go off the grid, thanks to limited cell phone and internet access and scarce electricity, with power grids cut at night. Some nights buzzed with friends at long dinners in ex-pats' homes in East Havana or at local clubs for salsa. Other nights were quiet in my Central Havana apartment, window units drowning out most pedestrian noise, my bedroom transformed into a little cocoon for reading, writing, being, and doing deep work on myself.
The Independent Spirit
I was, as my mother said, "an unusually independent child." My first introduction to Latin America came through a Mexico mission trip as a teenager. On my own, I packed my suitcase, raised funds for the journey, figured out currency exchange upon arrival, and called my father collect at his furniture store to update him on the trip and share that I was safe. As a blonde abroad with perhaps intrinsically woven instincts, independence and curiosity fostered a willingness to explore new territories, even at such a young age.
As I continued traveling through Latin America in adulthood, I learned fundamental survival skills along the way: how to precisely pack a backpack for a three-week adventure, wash a sundress in a bucket to dry on a porch clothesline under a Caribbean sun that hangs larger (and hotter!) in the sky, and discover that Canadians always know how to find a good black market cell phone if you lose yours.
Lessons from the Road
Traveling alone taught me, by necessity, to make new friends exactly where I was in life and place, to pick up new books and at least attempt reading Pablo Neruda in Spanish, and to determine whether exchanged currency would indeed buy that perfect piece of jewelry to commemorate the trip. More than anything, travel experiences taught me about myself and how to rely on my own resources—in other words, how to thrive and survive independently.
Through travel, I've also learned that God is everywhere, and with good conscience and relentless patience, He will guide and protect you. Most importantly, I've discovered that you can love and respect your roots while also yearning to wander and wonder in far-away places, learning new things along the way. In other words, it's perfectly fine to have both roots and wings.
The Paradox of Distance
I remember once, alone in the depths of the Caribbean, when a small child touched my pale skin and blonde hair in wonder, having never seen such things before. For a moment, I contemplated what on earth had compelled me to travel so far from home, so deep into a culture unfamiliar and uncertain—maybe even dangerous. But once I caught my breath and got my bearings, I remembered a fundamental truth: life isn't necessarily a series of conundrums—it's a series of paradoxes. Often, we come closer to ourselves by first going away.
This piece explores the transformative power of travel and the beautiful tension between belonging and wandering—between the roots that ground us and the wings that carry us toward new discoveries.
