I recently returned from a mind and heart expanding trip to Chicago aka The Windy City. It wasn't windy during our visit but we certainly felt the winds of change as one does when traveling. Traveling expands not only our physical horizons, but also our mental ones, in that it helps us literally expand our thinking by making surprising connections which cause new neural pathways to form. You can quite literally cause your brain to grow by enriching it with fresh experiences. How many times have you had breakthroughs with problem solving or creative ideas when traveling?
Earlier this summer, I’d been fortunate enough to attend a writer's conference in Wheaton which is a small town in Illinois. Wheaton College was founded by the abolitionist Jonathan Blanchard and was a safe harbour for runaway slaves during the Civil War part of the Underground Railroad it was the first college to take black students. You can read more about Blanchard Hall and its role in the Underground Railroad here: https://www.wbez.org/shows/morning-shift/whats-that-building-blanchard-hall-at-wheaton-college-and-the-underground-railroad/484bc97e-b846-4763-bbd4-fc215a2efab7. Wheaton College is also the site of the Billy Graham Museum. Some delightful friends of ours had lent us their condo in the city. The condo, was situated right on the river with astonishing views, so my husband and children, were able to go sightseeing while I went off to college. Each morning I experienced the bliss of simply having to turn up and attend fascinating and informative talks in a completely new environment which was in and of itself thrilling. Everything was different. Everything was new. Even traveling there through the insane Chicago traffic was a buzz, particularly interstate 290. All these highways are named after presidents. I’m pretty sure president 290 must have had a live fast, die young mentality. I must look up more on Ike Eisenhower. The 290 is situated near the Chicago loop, where everyone appears to go loopy. There were some hilariously battered vehicles on that road. More than once we clocked vehicles without their rear panels.
Meals during the conference took place in an award-winning canteen with so much choice as to induce gobsmacking wonder and an inability to choose. The American attendees seemed nonplussed at the lavish abundance, whilst I tried to maintain a semblance of self control and increasingly, the ability to do up the button on my jeans. Even trying new food can set neurons firing. Certainly the ice-cream machine had my brain in a tizz, so much so that I had to avoid it after the first day, such was it's magnetic pull to my brain. The sun was out and so was I. We all know that a lack of vitamin D makes one glum. I adored the Chicago heat so much, that I wandered about suspended in it at every ten minute break while most people ducked into the shade, moony face raised to the sun in abject adoration. The sun is a rare treat in Wales and I was going to lap up as much of its intensity as possible.
I was there in cicada season which was wild. Walk under a tree and myriad wings like mini helicopters assaulted you as they landed in your hair with a small but not insignificant thud. The ringing noise that accompanied tese joyous flying sequences penetrated skull and bone in the intense heat. The wildness of this intensity was only intensified by the cicada experience. I was told by the event organiser that the cicada season of 2024 was the first in 17 years that periodical cicadas emerged from the soil as fully fledged adults. I was awed by this. I related to this, I identified with those critters who’d burrowed out of the soil. It took some doing to burrow out of UK soil to get over there in the first place. I was once againthe 17 year old kid who left my home in Africa to travel to Europe, desperate for new experiences. If you’re in a rut, try to travel. The only way out of a rut is to physically move out of it. If you can’t hop on a plane or train, hop on a bike and take a new route. Vary your walking route to work. Embrace change. Whatever you do, make it new. It’ll make you a better, more empathetic, happier person. More soon.
#mindrenewal #braintraining #expandyourmind #mentalfitness
