What the Dolomites Taught Me About Leading a Balanced Life
Open heart, curious mind
Tre Cime di Laverado, Italy
Dear friends,
After 2.5 weeks traveling through one of the most heavily trafficked areas in the world (Western Europe) in the summertime, is it any wonder that I have a few short vignettes to share with you? None of them constitute a full-page essay or even a paragraph, rather they are all one to three-liners that give what I really want to talk about some context.
Before you read my short list of disasters, know that I understand how privileged I am to be able to travel, and that I understand that these are not actual disasters, but rather character-shaping, resilience-building moments.
A short list of disasters (read: learning experiences) that occurred on my otherwise lovely trip:
One of the two wheels on my suitcase broke in an unprecedented mutiny against me
I got on the wrong train, to put it succinctly, and instead of going to Munich, I went to Ulm. Lovely detour, if I do say so myself.
I sweated a LOT( a disaster in and of itself). I am very grumpy when I’m hot.
The Venice train station received a bomb threat(that was unfounded) the morning I was scheduled to leave, which resulted in a turn of events that went something like this: Everyone leaving went to buy a bus ticket or a taxi. Most of those people, after waiting in hour-long queues, ended up at the same train station on the mainland. With several trains canceled, everyone going to Milan( like myself) ended up on a train they were not ticketed for. It was a trauma-bonding experience, as young people say these days. All of this happened the day after I spent anywhere from 2 to an infinite amount of hours in a non-air-conditioned hostel bathroom trying not to lose my dinner. Traveler’s nausea?
I was always running out of water. Where is the water in this place?? Why does it cost money??!!!! Make it make sense. (I realize this may be an unpopular opinion, and in and of itself, does not constitute a disaster. However, combined with #3 and #4, you get what I consider a disaster).
I experienced my first heat exhaustion episode after getting catastrophically lost on what should have been a 2-mile hike( became an 8-mile hike) with my fiance(!!)
Me thinking we were over the hardest bit of our hike.
Overall, the trip was a smashing success and something I’m privileged to have experienced. Since I returned, I’ve been exploring the role of travel in our lives as a whole through questions like :
Why do we travel?
Can those of us that just can’t stand staying in one place do just that for the sake of the climate?
What are some ethical travel options? (Thanks to Substack author Sarah Styf for pointing me toward some resources here)
Can I, in good conscience, travel, while some people can’t put food on the table? Should I simply put the money I would use to travel toward reparations and other human rights causes?
Seeking stillness
After my list of small disasters, which at first were “haha” but built up to “ I need a spa day” after the Venice train station bombing threat, is it any wonder that all I’ve wanted to do since I got home is be?
Just be.
Right before I went to Venice, or as I like to call it, the Disney World of Italy - although that was not a fate chosen by the Venetians- I spent 3 glorious days in the Dolomites. It wasn’t quite high season yet, so the dorm room I ended up sharing with 2 Americans was mostly empty. Everything, in fact, was mostly empty.
Like a good tourist, I went to all of the spots listed on an itinerary I had saved from previous travelers. They were very detailed, and I was grateful for their efforts, even though absolutely everywhere was already full of people. Yet, even in the busiest of places, there was solitude.
A trail off of Lago di Braies that followed a clear river down to a little town called Oberhaus.
A quiet bench on an otherwise trafficked path along Lake Carrezza.
A bookstore in Cortina d’Ampezzo with only an Italian bookseller in a sweater vest and his black cat.
So many places to stop and be in awe.
Best of all, my hotel/hostel. One of many rifugios in the Dolomites, designed to give food and water and even shelter to weary bikers, skiers, and outdoors people of all kinds, it was remote and hard to reach, even in my sturdy rental car. Yet, it was so worth it. Perched on top of a mountain itself, away from any tourists, it offered stunning views that looked almost fake.
On my second night there, I had two American roommates. Both men, one a little older, one around my brother’s age. The 3 of us climbed up after dinner to a hill above the rifugio to watch the sunset. As we stood there, shivering - it was still getting down in the 30s at night- I noticed for the first time a little stream that trickled through our secret valley.
Waking up early the next morning, one less roommate in tow at 5:30 am, still shivering, two of us made the same climb to watch the opposite set of mountains taking on the pink glow of the sun returning to our little spot in the Alps. Time seemed to stand still as the sun grew brighter for almost an hour, not yet beckoning us onto our own individual journeys.
It was a moment of sacred pause, something that the Dolomites seemed to be an expert at offering.
Sunrise hits the Dolomites. One other lone sunrise-watcher captured on camera.
We -I- often talk about heavily trafficked destinations as too touristy, as if they’re now forever sullied. The destinations don’t ask for the people, nor do they care. They remain what they always have been.
For the Dolomites, I found that was an almost magical ability to find silence in chaos, to invite the awed wanderer into a moment of stillness, and to invoke a quality of curiosity. What lies down this path? What secrets have I yet to uncover in this place?
These are the qualities I find myself seeking and the questions I find myself asking of my own heart as I return home to the rhythms of everyday life.
Rather than constantly striving for the lauded qualities of stillness or silence, these states that are often equated with some kind of spiritual transcendence, I find myself seeking equilibrium between the unavoidable realities of human-ness.
There will be noise, mess, and unexpected events. Always. How can we find the magic there? How can we find our center when we feel off? What might we miss when we’re caught up in our own narratives about life? How do we stay open to the mystery of this life?
For Equilibrium
John O’Donohue
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.
As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.
Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.
As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.
As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.
As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.
May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god
