Backpackers. Travellers. Itinerant. Every year, thousands of young people set off on the road trip, becoming homeless for a while. Voyager, the virus of this globe-trotter generation. Remind me of the meaning of our wanderings and journeys.
It's interesting how we use a word to describe or even define a person, a situation, a context. Here in Quebec, I learned that being homeless means being homeless - Homeless. It made me weird the first time I heard that word, and I associated it with him, with her.
Itinerant. Itinerary. Destination. Travel. Backpack. Backpacker.
Backpacker. Me. Me. Itinerant. Itinerant. No fixed address.
SDF. Me. You. Us.
It's striking, isn't it? We think we know who we are. We think we know who they are.
Then, all of a sudden, the meaning of the word changes. While you thought that "itinerant" meant "traveler", and that this traveller was you, lucky nomadic travelers travelling the globe; the definition and looks change,"itinerant" means "tramp", and it is the vision of a world that changes.
I wonder... The meaning I give to a word, the intention that I put in it, that society gives it, has the power to change a situation, a context. In the mouth of a Quebecker, from "traveller" to "homeless". To finally realize that this is what we are, homeless travellers. In my mind, our two images are juxtaposed and superimposed.
Do you measure the turbulence that is taking place in you at this very moment when you realize that in this precise sense of itinerant, you are not an adventurer of modern times, but this person most often ignored by all, left on the margins of society?
First generation to cross the globe.
They are no longer mere exceptions, marginal dreamers, adventurers who are a little bit struck. Nowadays, there are waves of young people going to travel. They leave the tracks, the house, board a train, a plane. With their strapless backpack, like vagrants leaning against their houses. Portable universes, in levitation, contained in a 60L Decathlon. What do they seek to wander along the roads of continents like the itinerants of yesteryear?
Home Free Generation. The world as a temple of reason, with the Earth for passion.
I'm a wandering traveller. Without housing, traveling to destinations, accumulating routes. Receiving from strangers precious gifts, which I also receive from the present time. Every day is different and has its own surprises. A nomad without waiting, sometimes looking for a bit of security in my explorations on unmarked paths. Looking for glances and encounters, human warmth and light, to brighten my face with your passage.
Other cultures like a mirror, poignant confrontation.
Looking for a definition or a reason to set foot in the right direction. The one that matches me, and calls me. Pushes me.
Since everything is going wrong and the media is alarmed, I'm going on an adventure to look for another version of this ridiculous scenario that the future promises me. As people are struggling to brandish weapons, as violence and hatred awaken extremes, I consider giving another face to the source of all these sorrows. Since the Earth is becoming extinct, we sail to this place, these unexplored lands, never treaded by our feet. Carrying in our valiant, happy and innocent hearts the hope of bringing back from our expeditions answers to your questions. Courage and determination for adages and reasons.
