deartraveller

Dear Erica,

So good to know you're reading Shakespeare! It appers to me that all that talk I gave you about reading all the best authors while you can is finally paying off!

I presented you with that title because you made me think a lot about your methaporic interpretation of Shakespeare's excerpt ( which I, by the way and in case you had doubts (just kidding), do know ) and lead me to create my own.

As we started this journey we had as maing goals to discover what we wanted to do with our lives, professionally and personally. You've already found out what you want to do with the professional side and I'm on the verge to discover if my personal side of life is about to take a spin. With this said I present you my interpretation of the different stages of life that William Shakespeare set about 400 years ago.

All the world is a journey. All the men and women move in different ways, have ( as Shakespeare said ) «their exits and entrances» and «one man in his time» uses a large variety of means of transportation. I think you can see where this is going.

The first stage is when we are newborns. We are not able of locomote on our own so we have the baby stroller that allow us to move from the cradle to the baby care seat and to perform the two main functions of that time: eat and sleep. (God knows how I miss those days).

On the second stage we already know how to walk, we are children, with all the love and also terror that the word carries, but since our legs are still kid size our parents will introduce us to the trycicle and bycicle's world. We learn how to ride them and from that time on we no longer need help to go wherever we want, inside the limits of neighbourhood. We are starting to make it on our own.

Third stage and teenagers, both start with the same letter and with this letter also begins the word 'three' which represents the three means of transportation more often used by them : bus, subway and the more or less common scooter. With the 'teen' age comes the wanting of freedom and by riding alone from one place to another (school-home, home-school), using their own money (actually given by their parents disguised as allowance) they feel grown enough to also take the bus to hang out with friends on places more and more far from home, starting then to taste freedom.

But they eventually reach the age of the car and the so wanted independence. You can go wherever you want, do as many journeys as you want and the sky is the limit. You only depend on the gas money, which is finally provided by your first or second job.

Reaching the fourth stage, the after-college one, ( our brilliant and inspiring stage ) we get aware of the environmental problems of the planet and after contributing with our fair share of corbon dioxide with the car we realize it's time to take a plain and get a more up-to-date notion of the world, rediscovering ourselves and the world, or try to actually find ourselves.

The fifth stage, after seeing the world, is when we realize that we still have a lot of years left to work in a cubicle and, as you said it my dear friend, get surrounded by tons of paperwork, since the 30's till the 50's/55's. The sad part is that we actually do it! What a bummer, I know!! The late night hours will necessarily and without any escape drag us to the taxi option and no perfect parking spot will change our minds when it comes to change the discomfort of getting behind the wheel to face a crazy 7:00 am traffic for the oportunity of being able to put on some mascara, read one more time an important presentation or have a complete and calm breakfest as heading to work. But we can still look with hope to retirement...

Or not... we will be welcomed to the sixth stage with a short retirement and most likely (considering the quality of the air, the stressful lifestyle and the not so healthy eating habits) with the return of help to locomote. A wheelchair or a cane will now be our new best-friends, right after our husbands of course (I think Gabriel is trying to run for the title), imposing barriers to the hardly conquered freedom and the visits to far monuments and trips with no more than a map and a bagpack will no longer suit us and our mean of transport.

Which leads us to the seventh and last stage : When we become to old to appreciate all the things that happen faster then a walk in the park and to old to ride in anything else than an ambulance. Accidents happen more often and despite we keep saying 'I'm fine on my own' our loved and younger ones will start earing 'I can't do it on my own, please help me'.

I'm not saying that this will happen to us and I actually really really hope not! As you said, I'll also try by any means to avoid this ending, but you know how life is... unexpected and full of surprises!

Anyway what really matters is getting to spend it with the ones that matter the most, so I'm on my way to meet my mother in London, if you want to I can ask her to come with your mother also and we could all go watch Shakespeare's 'As You Like It'. Let me know how far you are and maybe we can meet again.

Love,

Sara.

Dear Sara,

As I’m sitting here on this bench waiting for the train I’m suppose to catch, I decided to write you about this book I’m reading to speed up time: “As you like it”, from the one and only William Shakespeare.

There was a particular passage that got my attention, the one that starts with that famous sentence “All the world's a stage”, you know it right? Well, as I read it I couldn’t help to compare what he wrote to what I’m experiencing right now.

All the world’s a train station, and man and women are merely travelers. Just like a moving train, they have their stays and their stops throughout their lives, and one man in his time travels all around.

We can describe our life journey in seven stops: at first the eager child, eager to leave his mom’s nap and discover the world for the first time. Then, the trapped teenager, with his loud music and alternative looks, who believes to be hold back by his over protective family and doesn’t have enough freedom. And then the early 20’s, the age to look incredibly stunning, go out, laugh out loud, love for the first time, commit every mistake and start discovering all the world’s incredible things. The late 20’s bring us the fresh worker, excited at first with the new office and tasks but without time to fit trips in his new schedule. With the 30’s comes the mature worker, seeking for recognition, with his everyday routine and who takes about two/three weeks a year to see a different country. It is the age of learning the lessons from the mistakes of the 20’s. And then the 40’s and followers, the age to pay for the drinks! It’s when you realize you’re not getting any younger and think: “I still have so much to see!” and go on a spree trying to make up for the working years and start paying attention to every little thing in life. Later on, the elderly traveler, tired and (I hope) full of life experiences to remember. It’s when the back ache kicks in, so the proper age to take a break from travelling, sit back and tell our story to our grandchildren: tell them about what we saw, how happy it made us. Hopefully it will inspire them to follow our footsteps and go discover the world for themselves someday too.

Actually, I never want to stop travelling the world, but I know it will come the day when I will be in an office surrounded by paperwork instead of road maps, but I‘m telling you, when that day comes, I will turn my back on it, go to the nearest train station and catch the first train. Then I will travel until my feet can no longer bear it. And I truly hope to have you always by my side in this, the most important journey of all: our own lives.

My train just got here. I’ll write you later telling you everything about the place I’m headed. I’m missing you a lot.

Love,

Érica.