Ten years ago, the morning after I discovered an ex-boyfriend had been killed in a car accident, I flew to Ladakh. We were shooting a cover at Pangong Lake, and I managed to supervise the crew, make decisions on locations, outfits, hair and make-up, when we should eat, rest and drive. The sky was a blinding blue, and the sunshine bounced off the Buddhist sayings carved by hand into the mountains, lighting them up as if they were messages from the heavens, reminders that everything is temporary, willing me into acceptance. However, as darkness and cold descended, I found myself bereft, staring up at more stars than I had ever seen, anywhere. In the depths of my grief, I noticed they were beautiful; and both the fullness and emptiness of that moment struck me and has stayed with me ever since. I have never been back to Ladakh but I always recommend it – it is a majestic place, one that sets you afloat but also brings you to your knees.
That wasn’t a romantic trip, but it is still a love story. So many of our travels are, in one way or another – we are driven by our passions for food, art, or history. There have been moments – staring at the pink granite mountains of Tasmania, on a shikara in Srinagar’s floating flower market, getting caught in the rain on a day in Champagne – when I have found myself not only giddy with the excitement of a teenage crush but deeply aware and grateful for my joy, for all the chances I’ve been given, for the things that have led me to this place, this moment. That’s love.
Moreover, what is so fascinating is how our experience of a place can be completely transformed by the state of our minds and hearts when we are in it. I’d never enjoyed New York as a teenager – I found it too loud and concrete. However, one spring, I took a Greyhound bus to the city to meet a man I thought was mysterious and exciting, and consequently, everything he showed me in his neighborhood, the Lower East Side, took on a new aura. I discovered a Middle Eastern bar where I met a woman who would teach me to belly dance; and a Russian hair salon where they shocked me by cutting off more than a few inches in the hope of making a wig – ‘Indian hair is premium, we both make money.’ I also helped to paint a little Italian restaurant that had been damaged in a fire, and left thinking I’d made lifelong friends. I hadn’t. Yet, it was the start of a long affair with New York, where I fell in love, neighborhood by neighborhood, a little more each time I returned.
Our Love & Travel special feels especially appropriate now, when so many of us are separated from partners, friends, and family. I find myself planning all kinds of reunions, searching for villas in Santorini and Sri Lanka, or dreaming of a cruise in Alaska, or to the Galápagos Islands, or down the Hooghly River. Few things have the capacity to lift us up and make us feel alive and new again, allowing us to feel real and true joy in the moment, in the way travel does. To be moved, I say, get moving.
