RESFEBER

The past few months have been a little odd. I’ve spent so much time planning and organizing for my trip to France (28 days and counting), and though the plan is set and I am for the most part organized, I am still feeling a bit –-- I don’t actually have a word for it. I’m not nervous. I’m not trepidatious. I’m not anxious. I’m… I’m scouring a thesaurus for the word, though they all seem rather negative. I am looking for a word that is similar to apprehensive, to cognizant, to regardful…nope still don’t have it. WAIT!!! I think I found it!!!

RESFEBER (Swedish, Prounciation RACE-fay-ber): The restless race of a Traveler’s heart in anticipation of travel.

Is that it??? It’s at least closer than anything in English.

I have asked myself the questions typical of adventures I’ve taken in the past. What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Where am I going? What will happen when I get there? What will I do? What will I see? How will what I do and see change me? These aren’t anxious questions, but ones that filter though my mind while staring out the window or waiting for the traffic light to turn green. One might say they are needless questions to ask, and perhaps they are, but I am ceaselessly asking them anyway.

While I can’t help but ask these questions, I don’t spend too much time trying to answer them. The questions are much like the questions I ask about my Art. What will I be painting? How will I be painting? Will my style change and if it does, how much will it change? How much will I accomplish? And when I have accomplished all that I will, what will I do next? These questions, along with the former, may induce anxiety for the reader, but they are merely questions from an analytical mind fixated on an unknown future. And then, when the subject of these questions becomes the present, when I am in France and deriving the answers simply by existing in that time, I will still be asking many of the same questions. But, as time will be of the essence so to speak, I must have self-control.

I am an early riser. I imagine that in France, I will be waking well before the first croissants are served. I will reserve that time – the time between waking and beginning my work to reflect on these questions, to walk in the silence of the countryside, observing the colors of the day, contemplating the actions of my hands, and reflecting on the time spent, spending, and to eventually spend. And then the time when I paint or write, I must commit to painting and writing, and ignore my analytical mind wanting to question.  

All of this is my attempt to create lessons to learn from, and new knowledge to return with. This trip is worth far more than 6 weeks in France, though its true value is a question for another day.