Travel as a Healer

What is in your Branch library?

I love to travel, even short day trips locally jazz me up. On the flip side, I am finding it very easy to stay at home and get only small things done. My husband is very much a homebody and I have to encourage him to go, thus planning usually falls to me. We have almost the entire state of Oregon to explore. While I grew up here and drove most of the backroads in the 1990s there are many places I want to revisit and explore with him.

These trips, either close to home or further away are healers for me. I get to create new pages in my journals, new images, see things with a fresh eye. In the past I was always looking for the perfect photograph. I have a drawer full of slides that sometimes I pull out and look at. But my sketchbooks get flipped through on a regular basis.

When you travel it lights up and strengthens parts of your brain that thrive on novelty. We tend to feed ourselves and our brains a diet of monotony. Same thing for breakfast and lunch daily. Dinner might vary a bit. Same job for many years. Drive the same way to the grocery store every time. Same aisles at Costco. You get the idea.

Yet your brain lights up and grows when you expose it to new and different things. Sounds, scents, foods, experiences all contribute to brain stimulation and growth. Want to increase your creativity? Do something different. Go someplace new. Even the fabric store can be a place of inspiration. Look at the fabrics and observe what colors and patterns you are attracted to, which repulse you. Why? Think about your reactions. Anyway to translate that into your current art medium?

Get out of that lovely carpeted rut you have made for yourself and see someplace new. You might be surprised at the change.