Chameleon

28 March 2007By Zhu No Comment

When I was a kid, I used to look up at the sky and try to spot the planes. I stared as long as I could, my eyes tracking the huge bird breaking though the clouds, wondering where it was going, what was the story of the people flying up there on a journey to another world. Sure, the plane might have been flying Paris-Marseilles, but I liked to fantasize about mysterious destinations, warm weather, dream beaches and white mountains.

Although I’ve always try to fit in wherever I was, I wanted more. I once though the world could be divided in two : the people happy with their current life who tried to improve it materialistically; and the people who always wanted more, who needed a challenge in order to survive. Happy innocents on one side; perpetually unsatisfied hairs-splitter on the other. I soon realized I probably fitted best in this second category.

After I graduated from high-school, I had sleepless nights thinking about my future. I wanted to maintain a facade of normality by going to university, getting a job, having co-workers and bosses. But I also wanted to leave, leave as far as I could, to check whether the grass was truly greener on the other side of the world. It was almost a fatality. I was bound to hitch hack the world, to soak up cultures and languages, to understand what was going on around me.

Volando vengo, volando voy
Deprisa deprisa a rumbo perdido

Cuando me buscan nunca estoy
Cuando me encuentran yo no soy
El que está enfrente porque ya
Me fui corriendo más allá

My first trip to China was an eye-opening experience. I felt free yet challenged, lost yet found, a stranger but part of a new global trend: a chameleon who truly doesn’t belong anywhere but can try and succeed anyway.

Traveling scares me and will always do so. What’s not to be scared ? I stack all my stuffs in a backpack, ride crazy buses all nights long and arrive in places I can’t even point out on a map ! Tell that to anybody and you’re sure they will never travel. Because if you describe it this way, you don’t know about the rush of adrenaline you get when you arrive somewhere fresh and different, you pass on the magic of walking in the middle of nowhere to finally get to a beach or the top of a mountain, you don’t mention the feeling of mastering your surroundings and living a free life, a life of geographical choices and colored languages.

Traveling scares me cause it’s always a new journey. Like getting a new job, moving to another city, making the choice of living with someone or deciding of anything in life. But better jump aboard than passing on a new experience. Better try than regretting.