Time passes, and so does life.
And so, before leaving time behind, life resists by offering memory this past that does not pass, this time that refuses to fade, this recollection that allows us to shape and tell our stories. This month, I have decided to share with you the memories left by my first journeys.

Where it all truly began
My soul was not always one that cherished travel; it only knew how to move from one place to another. It merely left one spot to reach another. My eyes did not know how to contemplate nature through a window; my feet could not walk without calculating the time and the fatigue each step would cost me. That is how I crossed more than half my life without casting a benevolent glance upon my own crossings.

And then I met life the kind that shatters routine, that shakes certainties, that sweeps away friends and distances the world we once thought unshakable. I knew that hollow moment when the only way out was to clear my mind. Everyone has their own way of moving forward: some choose to empty bottles, I chose to roam the edges of the earth.

Even in the very depths of hardship, life knows how to conspire with the one who feels the blows of misfortune. A colleague I had met a year earlier suggested we go together on a hike to the Blue Lake of Guizengeard. I didn’t know what hiking was, and that lake sparked no magic in my mind until she showed me a photo of our destination, and I instantly said YES!

A yes motivated by more than the trip itself

It was a yes driven by reasons other than enjoying the journey. To me, travel meant departure and arrival. Once there, my plan was to take pictures, feed my social media, and showcase the beauty of the place without ever truly taming it. I was not dreaming of the trip itself. I was dreaming of the photos, and of the impressions they would leave on those who saw them.

With this kind of mindset, suffering is silenced, but never slain; it returns the very instant after the mission of impressing is complete.

In hindsight, that trip proved valuable. It taught me three lessons, which I tried to sum up as follows:

“The most beautiful photos can sometimes hide the misery of the one who takes them or orders them to be taken.”
“The most beautiful places can sometimes be silent witnesses to the greatest sufferings.”
“A smile in a photo is the photo’s smile. The one who mimics the gesture knows more about the message they wish to project than about the actual state of their soul.”

After Guizengeard, I went on to take other hikes in the Hautes-Pyrénées, in Auvergne, in the Gorges du Verdon, and many other journeys! Journeys where simply taking pictures no longer satisfied me, where emptiness crept in and questions poured out.
Why do I travel? What do these journeys bring me? My questions remained unanswered for a long time, but the hardest part was already behind me. I was no longer moving for the sake of photographs or rather, photographs alone were no longer enough. I needed a reason more viable, more lasting, one that spoke to me and engaged me fully.

That will require a second article on my true motivations. In the meantime, I wish you a good month of August.

PS 1: I originally published this article in French in 2022. If you’d like me to translate others, feel free to let me know in the comments.

P.S 2: Back in 2020, I had attempted to write on the topic of travel, but I did not yet know what I truly wanted to say. So clarity may not have been present but I keep those words to avoid denying the person I was at the time:(20meilleurs citations sur le voyage, pourquoi voyager, 5 astuces pour préparer un voyage, les cascades de Gimel).

Written by Aliane UMUTONIWASE