Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Wanderlust





wan·der·lust ˈwɒndərˌlʌst/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[won-der-luhst]
–noun
a strong, innate desire to rove or travel about.

A very strong or irresistible impulse to travel.

In other languages it looks like this:

Russian: страсть к путешествия
Chinese (Simplified): 旅行癖
Arabic: شَهْوَة السَّفَر
Spanish: pasión por viajar, ansia de ver mundo
Italian: (desiderio di viaggiare)
Dutch: reislust
Estonian: rännukirg
Finnish: vaellusvietti
French: passion du voyage
German: die Wanderslust
Greek: λαχτάρα για ταξίδια

I can't seem to rid myself of complete wanderlust. I go on one trip and I'm already planning another! My thirst seems unquenchable. I figure since I'm single, that this is a normal thing. However, how can I settle down when all I want to do is go, go, go?

Ever since that first out of country experience teaching English in China 12 years ago, I want to live EVERYWHERE, learn EVERY language, try EVERY type of food. I want the experience. I want ALL of it!

I don't think there is a cure, but any idea on how I can incorporate this insatiable need into my life... normally?

"The Wanderlust has lured me to the seven lonely seas,
Has dumped me on the tailing-piles of dearth;
The Wanderlust has haled me from the morris chairs of ease,
Has hurled me to the ends of all the earth.
How bitterly I've cursed it, oh, the Painted Desert knows,
The wraithlike heights that hug the pallid plain,
The all-but-fluid silence, -- yet the longing grows and grows,
And I've got to glut the Wanderlust again...

Wild heart, child heart, all of the world your home.
Glad heart, mad heart, what can you do but roam?
Oh, I'll beat it once more in the morning, boys,
With a pinch of tea and a crust;
For you cannot deny
When you hark to the cry
Of the Wan-der-lust."

-Robert William Service

5 comments:

Mama Cher, Ok, fine, it's Sharon said...

Maybe you could be a tour guide/travel companion and take rich people all over the world. Or maybe you should be a flight attendant. Or maybe you could just win American Idol and travel the world. The possibilities are endless.

Caroline said...

Normally? . . .no.

Shannon said...

Just go, go somewhere and get lost in a different culture(s). Have you heard back from Randy on Germany?

Kelsey K. Hartley said...

I feel the same strong desire to roam. And am jealous of journalist, Anderson Cooper, for his ability to travel and tell interesting stories.
And the fact that he's a man. With current international unrest and violence I've less interest in visiting Egypt or even all of Africa. But it seems it would be less risky if I were a man.

In another life I would have started school to become a journalist.

Karen Liu said...

Erin, Ni hao! Hao jiu bu jian! I didn't know you taught English in China!