In Search Of God
Wonderlust Takes Me Back Home
Colombia, Peru, Tibet, Iceland, New Zealand - these are just a few of the places that my wanderlust creates in my mind. Somewhere far away, something unseen, but at the same time very close to my soul. I just have to go there and to experience. Even my stomach clenches, something inside me stirs when I think about it..
I just know this won't last long. As soon as I return from any journey, that sweet feeling of discovery will find its way into my artworks, into my touches with loved ones, my home, and will start talking to me about traveling somewhere else again.
Although I have not had the opportunity to travel for half my life, I have spent the other half of it trying to recover that lost taste. I would go anywhere abroad just to go and see something new. Usually choosing not too touristy places, instead trying to feel the local spirit.
Kids, Kids, Kids
Another kind of journey started when I became a mother. It has become longer and adapted to the well-being of the little ones. Of course, quarantine has changed the way we all live our lives, but before that spending a month in a hot country in winter, after the rainy and bitter weather in Lithuania, became the norm.
It was all about them. For them to climb the first mountain of their lives, to explore all the most beautiful seas, to eat Italian gelato, because it's the best in the world and to get on the most fun roller coasters. It's the same as marking their first steps. And every time you do it, there is a sweet feeling of satisfaction.
Inner journeys
It was only as the children grew up, and the photo albums accumulated and remained on our memory plate or in the iCloud, I realized that this didn’t satiate that inner sense of SELF. Yes, I could see the satisfaction in the children's eyes and empathically feel their joy, but at the same time the sadness was always coming out. I was missing something, I was overlooking something. I was like an observer of life. My family, the people we visited, but not myself.
Until one trip, I couldn't stand it anymore. I was sleeping in a beautiful apartment by the sea with a view of the mountains. Small, easy to climb. I called one “my family mountain,” the other “my mountain.”
I told myself that I had to climb them with intention. I dedicated one to the well-being of my family and loved ones. The other for my own development and fulfillment.
The next day I climbed them both. I cried. Not out of happiness at having reached my goal, but because of the conversations with myself that I had been reluctant to start for so long.
Desert transforms
That's how I started my little journeys on family trips. Every time I go to a country, I take time for myself.
I like deserts and sands the most. They have something sacred, magical. They always take away and give at the same time. They always answer my toughest questions.
On one of my trips, I felt very confused. Tired of the household, unable to create and sad. I went to a small desert (10 km round trip) on my own.
What did I discover from there? First of all my fear. Even though you could meet one other person in this small desert, and see the hotels by the ocean in the distance, I felt indescribable fear. That I was alone. My heart was pounding and I wanted to turn around and go back to my family.
But my determination didn't give up and I walked away from the hotels and the people, up and down the high dunes, looking at and photographing the plants. Soon I realized that I could overcome my anxiety by taking photographs. I put my phone in my pocket and vowed not to take it out to see where I will go further.
Then the beautiful shells started to catch my eye. "I'm going to put this one in a vase, I'm going to give this one to my mum, and it's so pretty," I said to myself in my head, until my pockets overflowed. And then I asked myself, "Do I really need them that much? Why isn't it enough to just enjoy them here in the sand? Yes, it was a feeling of transience. I took handfuls of shells out of my pockets and left them on the ground.
I walked on, as if I was longing, something was disturbing me, I walked fast, until suddenly a crow cawed and a shiver went down my spine. I was very frightened. I realized that I was still carrying with me that fear of being with myself, alone, also death. We all have it inside, right?
I laid down for a long time. I let myself be afraid. I let all the thoughts come, I didn't criticize them, I just let them pass by. Until they didn't bother me anymore, until my body calmed down.
When I came back, I felt exhausted and at the same time very happy, having found myself again.
Joy is a choice
This month's “Tarantula: Authors and Art” featured artist Nina Buesing shares her family photographs from a road trip across America. She says her conscious choice is to capture joy.
And indeed, when I look at her photographs, I see her family history. Alive, pulsating, unadorned, natural. So many feelings and hearts are in it.
And I am with Nina, just like her in the photograph, putting my feet in the water, climbing up the hill and jumping into the water with her children, smelling the swaying cornflowers and poppies. Such a wonderful sense of travel comes over me!
Video by Nina Buesing
Heroes in search of themselves
Sometimes it seems to me that we are looking for a God in us when we travel. We also challenge ourselves in unexpected situations to discover the innermost parts of ourselves that we haven't seen or have kept deep down.
As Joseph Campbell aptly observes in “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” in myths, in modern stories, and in life, we leave home, that after long journeys in which we hope to discover something, we find what we have always had - ourselves. Maybe a little more colorful, a little more unusual, but ourselves.
I look at Nina Buesing’s photographs and I see myself and my journeys with children. How familiar and how many times I experienced it. And today I am like the beautiful horse in her video, finally sitting quietly on the ground.
Video by Nina Buesing
I'm grounded here, in my new home, at the dining room table, where I will soon serve the children lunch, Swedish sandwiches, as we have moved to Stockholm from Vilnius one year ago.
I don't feel like going anywhere, just enjoying Nina’s photographs. Until that feeling visits me again.
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