Bangkok Kitchen is in Maumee, Ohio, roughly 476 miles from my house.

That’s a little far for carry-out.

I got hooked on Bangkok Kitchen during a road trip to Chicago over ten years ago. Maumee is a southwestern suburb of Toledo, an easy exit off the interstate. The stop was supposed to be a quick overnight in a place I’d never see again, but after a hit of Bangkok Kitchen, I knew I’d be back. It was easy enough. My daughter lived in Chicago, so there were real reasons to drop in. But after said daughter moved to D.C., I had to face the depth of my addiction. (We won’t talk about that trip to Denver where I purposely ignored straight-shot I-70 to drift up to I-90 for a Bangkok Kitchen fix. What’s an extra thirty miles or so when excellent drunken noodles are at stake?)

Thing is, I can get perfectly decent Thai food about five minutes from my house. It’s really good. If I’m being honest, the menu and execution isn’t that different from what I get in Maumee. Why, then, doesn’t my local place rise to the same mythic proportions as Bangkok Kitchen which, considering the way I talk about it, may as well sit serenaded by heavenly choirs on a sun-drenched hilltop instead of planted amid chain restaurants and hotels?

I suspect it has more to do with me than with the restaurant itself. Whenever I’m in Maumee, I’m just passing through. I never stay for more than one night. There are no obligations or responsibilities waiting for me there, no pre-conceived identity to inhabit. Anything is possible in Maumee, Ohio. Filling my car’s gas tank at a station I can’t drive to in my sleep, wandering down grocery aisles lined with brands my home store doesn’t stock, listening to accents slightly different from the ones I usually hear…it’s all interesting simply because it’s unfamiliar. Maumee is usually my first stop heading westward, a gateway to potential. Those drunken noodles carry a punch that comes from more than holy basil and Thai dragon peppers: they symbolize adventure.

I know. That’s a lot to ask of food.

The past 2+ years have grounded most of us, and the familiar can feel even more deadening than usual. I last visited Bangkok Kitchen in September 2019. (I was heading to Vancouver, so Maumee was legit ON THE WAY.) Every now and then I google Bangkok Kitchen, just to see if they’re still around. They’ve changed, too, and currently offer only take-out and delivery. I hope we will both snap back soon.

In the meantime, in one of the hotels near my house sits a person who pulled off the highway for the night, eager to head elsewhere in the morning. For them, the everyday scenery that makes my eyes glaze over represents a launchpad to something different.

One person’s blah is another person’s fresh start.

I can imagine myself here. In my mind, I’m bringing back apple-cider donuts from the garden center on a Sunday morning, settling on the deck to enjoy them with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. I’m exploring stores and restaurants I’ve never visited before or catching the commuter train to spend a few hours in the city. The possibilities within each day rejuvenate me beyond anything I experience at home.

The silly part is that I can do all this same stuff at my house, too. I live within walking distance of bakeries. There are grocery stores nearby for last-minute whims. I can easily walk my purchases home to enjoy on my very own deck overlooking my own herbs and yard. I have a city, too, with a train convenient enough to ride into it. So…why does one place make me feel so much more alive than the other?

I’ve always been prone to wanderlust. As much as I like my home, as grateful as I am for everything in my life, there is always a part of me that longs to experience “elsewhere.” Of course, an impulse to travel is easy to explain. For most of us, leaving home means leaving behind never-ending chores that inevitably show up in chain-reaction formation. The thought of adding our footsteps to iconic sites that have witnessed histories we can only read about is a lot more appealing than taking yet another lap along the same neighborhood route for the umpteenth time. Learning about different cultures and people feeds both the mind and the heart. But while all of this is compelling, it isn’t necessarily what fuels my need to wander.

For me, being elsewhere lets me see myself through a different lens. It helps me understand not only who I am, but who I might be if undefined by the familiar. (This means I can get hyped simply by walking through a grocery store in new territory or figuring out the transit system in a city I don’t know.) Who would I become in a place that has no expectations of me? Which aspects of myself would I strengthen? Which habits would I jettison as no longer relevant? Re-creating myself triggers my imagination into overdrive. What would life be like if I lived somewhere else?

Most dictionaries define the word “wanderlust” as a strong desire to travel, a need to keep moving. Some studies even say that for approximately 20% of us, it’s a genetic remnant of our ancestors’ nomadic hunting and gathering days. But it’s interesting to note that where wanderlust is concerned, you never actually arrive anywhere. The “lust” is for the wandering itself.

Over the past fifteen months or so, it’s been harder to bloom where I’m planted without the influx of energy that comes from free-falling through a different setting. I’ve learned, however, that reverberations picked up through past wanderings never quite leave us. We can tap into them via memory and imagination. Granted, doing this isn’t nearly as invigorating as hands-on exploring, but perhaps “being there” isn’t the entire point. Ultimately, the benefits of travel reach their full potential only if we let them broaden our understanding of the world and how we can pour our best into it. Even I have to admit that we can do this while grounded.

Maybe that innate call to wander is what allows us to make the most of staying put.