My Art to Traveling

For most people, it’s not necessarily the destination, but the drama associated with going from point A to point B. The mere fear of missing a flight, hurtling through the sky in a tiny spaceship where your life feels out of your hands, or the uncertainty of what awaits you at your destination can send people into a spiral of anxiety. At one point in time, this was me.

Now, traveling has become my art. It has become how I plaster different colors, or stamps in my passport, of my life on a blank canvas, creating an image of a life that has profound meaning to me: I have mastered how to move casually, slickly, and calmly as I coast from one end of the world to another via flight.

As I’ve traveled more on my own, I realized my initial anxiety about traveling wasn’t from my experience but from others’ experiences that tickled down. Growing up, although they may deny it, my parents had the travel nerves. For my mom, it was getting us all there on time and for my dad it was the fright of being on an actual airplane. As you know, we become our environment. Creating your own experiences, on your own, helps you release what doesn’t serve you. Just because it stresses someone else out does not mean it needs to stress you out.

For me, traveling has unleashed millions of opportunities. Seeing an airplane, knowing I will be going on an airplane, or needing to book a flight brings joy to my heart. I completely understand the hassle of a long travel day and the desire to collapse into bed or take a refreshing shower. The good news is that your cozy sleep and soothing shower are just one flight away!

Majority of the experiences in life request our time and energy, and within that is how we can consciously forge our own road, even when it comes to finding our swag to traveling.

For starters, It’s the drive on the way there knowing I am creating new experiences in a land that has accepted my invitation. The timing is divine and everything is aligned. Hooray!

Tap tap tap … We are checked in, bags pre-paid, boarding tickets loaded on our phone before it even becomes the actual day of travel. This used to be the biggest hassle for travelers, but technology has our back. So, by the time I show up to the airport all I do is go to a kiosk, fill in some information, get some tickets, go to the counter, and drop the bag. No part of this requires urgency or fear. Sometimes when I feel myself moving faster then needed, I am automatically paused because I let the migration of breathe and presence merge.

The hardest part is over before it even started.

It’s the way I like to carry myself through the airport, moving gracefully with my belongings, knowing where everything is in my backpack.

Airports to me, whether local or international, are a foreign world. Being in places where you don’t know everybody, or quite frankly anybody, gives you the freedom to show up as you please. It’s the labels given to us from a young age in a “bubble-like” environment that restrict our fullest potential, with or without intent. It’s difficult to feel wonderfully inspired or broaden our worldly perspective while stagnant with the same programming every single day. With no newness entering one’s life, it's difficult to separate who we truly are versus who we were taught to be.

In an airport, let alone a foreign environment where no one knows you, whether that’s from the outfit you wear, the way you walk, the food you try, or the music you are listening to, you are free to be you.

Ensuring my outfit is both cute and comfortable during my travel day is another part to my art. The most typical outfit is a favored hoodie (yes, a hoodie is a MUST for sleeping), comfortable sweats with socks that are long enough to tuck under my sweatpants. Whether that’s baggy jeans, which is a first for me right now because I am meeting a soul sister on the other end on the flight, a cute lil’ matching set, or just a big ‘ol jacket that hugs me as I walk, my outfits elevate my energy. What you wear impacts you because if you feel good, you look good.

With my ID and boarding pass in hand, TSA pre-check helps me stroll through security in under 2-5 minutes, on a good day. It’s not until after I make it through security will I take out my headphones and transcend through the frequencies of my beloved playlists. With my music in, bag checked, and security passed, this is where the travel day gets even better.

As I stroll through the airport, not only do I see different cuisines but as well as ethnicities. Seeing people from all over the world, especially if it’s an international airport is a heart opener. I like to be in rooms with all colors. And of course, the possibility of meeting my significant other with the shaggy hair and a swag outfit is a never ending fairytale of giggles when my eyes meet others.

As I wait for the plane to board, maybe a coffee in hand, I am that person who is probably the last to board. There is no sense of urgency or fear needed. You have a ticket, you have a seat, the plane isn’t leaving without you. I await until the line is just short enough so I’m not standing for no reason and if I want to board earlier I merely join an earlier boarding group. And in the unlikely chances you feel you get stopped, stand behind a family and as they walk forward you say, “I’m with them…”

There may be lines, waiting, and standing while in the airport, but there is pretty much nothing else required of you. The actual part of traveling requires nothing remotely demanding. I believe the urgency and fear rooted in travel days comes from a thrown away truth that maybe, just maybe, it will all work out. It’s an epidemic we’ve created where believing “things never work out,” that's easier than believing it possibly could.

The airport gives me time to sit with my thoughts and breathe and this freaks people out - sitting with their thoughts, inner world, and breathing. At the end of the day, the most important thing we need to do to stay alive is breathe.

For the duration of the flight, we get to sit there like pigs, rot in a seat, and be given free food and water, which shockingly most people do not appreciate. Oh and if you need to go the bathroom there is one less than 50 ft away. What a privilege! You get bored? Scroll through old photos reminiscing on old eras knowing today will just be another era, stare out your window as you rocket above the ground, draw, read, write, and/or engage in dialogue with the person sitting next to you. How about the flights that have a TV? Blankets and pillows? We are so blessed! All of these things make me feel alive, especially the magical cloud watching meditation.

Just think about this for a moment. We show up to a place that transports us to another world. Whether that’s a state within your country or a country within another continent, we are merely transported and rocketed through the air into another world.

If that isn’t art I don’t know what is.

Peace and Love,

Chelsey Grace

(Edited by: Kevin Fashola)