“Are you excited, Ant?” is a question I’m repeatedly asked, as I quash the three-weeks-to-go anniversary. The simple, and honest answer is “no”. All through my life I have never been excited prior to holidays, or even extended peregrinations. (Take a moment to absorb the word “peregrination” as if you’re like me, you’ll find it somewhat alluring).
I’m unsure what it is within my make-up that makes me this way, but I do find it a little obscure in comparison with the more mainstream symptoms of sleepless nights and endless day dreams. I once booked a spontaneous flight to New York, and flew the next day while my heart remained the same constant rhythm. I embarked on a solo tour of Europe for a few months, and my gaze remained suspiciously nonchalant. I spent a weekend in Edinburgh, but the thought of it raised not-a-murmur of anticipation.
Note, upon arrival at my lodging I generally sling my bag’o’rags into the most inappropriate spot, grab some local currency and hastily vacate knowing that within moments I will experience the mind blowing ‘Backpacker Orgasm’- the moment the hostel doors creak shut, and my destination accrues a renewed vibrancy which sends a shiver through my spine and implants a sparkle of mischief into my step. I liken it to an addiction, of which travel and orgasms could both be classified. As a (former) smoker I didn’t get the buzz from extracting the cigarette from it’s cardboard casket, I got it from the initial inhalation. As a drinker, I don’t value staggering to the bar and ordering a pint, I cherish the feeling of my body succumbing to that introductory sip.
In relation to my forthcoming round-the-world trip, the destination for my Backpacker Orgasm will be the coveted, and unsuspecting streets of Moscow. Curiously, for each journey along The Trail between the Moscow street and the one ‘home’ to England in a couple of years, I will hold an anticipation of untold ecstasy. I’ll also experience the mainstream symptoms, which are purely omitted from the period up to and including the first leg i.e. the embarking of The Trail. It helps to be this way in some respects, with the lack of emotion running amok through my veins I am impartial to compulsion and it ensures that nothing is an anticlimax. Without constantly trying to envisage what it will be like, I am able to enjoy the orgasm to its full potential time and time again and I’m rarely disappointed.
“Are you exited, Ant?”, I hear you ask “No – but that street in Moscow should be”.
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