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I have been enjoying what may well be the most pleasurable part of my upcoming journey: the planning. I planned one trip, panicked over the cost, decided not to go after all and cancelled all the tickets and reservations. Then I was so deeply saddened to lose out on a great adventure that I laid out a more affordable itinerary and booked that shorter, safer, more sensible trip. I was still feeling sad, as though I’d lost out on something still, and realized that what I really wanted was not a specific set of experiences in any particular places but simply the one freeing experience of going on an extended journey and the even more freeing experience of knowing what is the most sensible choice and purposely not choosing it.
Being sensible isn’t always the smartest thing to do. My mother scrimped and saved like a Scrooge all her years for her retirement with my father. Unremarkably, she died and he travelled around the world (pretty well) a time or two on their savings with more to spare. She never went anywhere or indulged in anything except sale-priced pies. Many, many of them. She had an appetite for many things that she would never allow herself to satitate, and so she lived and died grim and fierce from frustration and endless craving.
Epilepsy and chronic bronchitis put me in the highest risk category for the H1N1 virus. Otherwise healthy people have already died from seizures and suffocation because they had those health issues and contracted the virus.I live right across the street from the station where they are giving out the flu shots but have not yet gone. I haven’t the patience for the line that starts forming in the morning for the station and closes at 7pm with still 50 or more people waiting in line. Day after day. I will go in time but for now I’ll sip hot coffee and watch the hundreds of parents herd their small children toward safety.
I may not live to the beginning of this trip, or the end, or the next one, or the one after. but like my friend Sandra, I will continue to make plans to take advantage of the experiences of the lands my world citizenry offers. A smart woman seeks adventure on her own doorstep, it’s there to be had, but she also knows when to go beyond and then return to her treasures with new eyes.
Most of the places I’m travelling to I have been before, somewhat grim and certainly fierce, with both frustration and endless craving. I believe it will be good for me to return, less grim now, less fierce now, with far fewer frustrations, still full of craving, but less voracious, more discerning. I refuse to eat sale-priced pie. Actually, I have developed a strong aversion to pie of any sort. It has nothing to do with the tase, it’s just something that I can’t swallow.
Namaste
