Land -- a commodity so scarce in Singapore that people pay exorbitant amounts of money to own it. In my mind, land = money. This is also why owning a big home never appealed to me because I equated it with wasted time, effort and money spent cleaning the interior and maintaining the exterior. Even when I lived in the States, whilst people saw owning a home with a white picket fence and large open yard as freedom and bliss, I only saw money down the drain.
But something changed during my trip to the United States in October last year, where I went on 3 road trips:
- My youngest sister, nephew and I made the 4-hour drive to Idaho Falls to see my other sister and new niece;
- Solo trip to the Salt Flats for an Instagram photoshoot (shot by Yours Truly✌);
- Solo drive to visit Andrew S. and his family. [Andrew is also a Church member, and we coincidentally entered the PhD programme at OSU in the same semester. I cannot stress how much his family was a bright spot during my time there. A few years after we graduated, his family decided to eschew the "modern life" and bought a farm in very rural Holden, UT. Holden is so small it doesn't have traffic lights, only "Stop" signs. Driving through felt surreal.]
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| Part of the Bonneville Salt Flats |
You must understand that I dislike driving. It induces my anxiety, and despite being a seasoned road-tripper (remember this ultimate 27-hour trip done alone...twice?), road trips are nothing more than the means to get me to my destinations.
Thus, I was taken aback by the wonderment that enveloped me as I drove to the Salt Flats and Holden. With the car eating up the miles through untouched land with nary a person in sight, I was awestruck by the never-ending miles of golden-brown land, and the towering mountains in the distant horizon backdropped against the unimpeded wide azure sky. As I gazed upon the rugged yet magnificent far-off landscape, I felt a shudder through my body, and a breathe through my soul. It was a literal sigh of relief.
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| One of the moments I felt that "sigh". I was driving back from Holden and nearing the I-15. |
Living in urban, populous and too-manicured city-Singapore had taken an unconscious toll on my soul. I didn't realise how much I craved the isolation in wide open spaces.
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| View from the airplane to the States, so not from a roadtrip. But the principle remains -- miles of untouched land makes my soul sing! |
To be clear, I don't want to own the land. Too much maintenance and the anxiety-prone me will always feel insecure about serial killers, carnivorous animals, natural fires, etc. And I'm still a true-blue city girl all the way!
But to be able to run away from city life and people for a few hours, and be surrounded by acres upon acres of land untouched by the human hand? Yes.
Owned land is money. But unowned land is gold.
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| Bought a selfie-tripod with bluetooth clicker for my photoshoot at the Bonneville Salt Flats. One of the best travel accessories I've invested in! |
(Note: Of course, a fun road trips must include blasting music, the GPS, snacks, and a reliable car with good gas mileage. So even activities related to unowned land will cost money. But such costs are more incidental and incremental.)
