Spring and the Moon of Liberation
Thursday gratefuls: Travelin’. Truckin’. Grateful Dead, thanks Mark. Diane. Great Sol, out and proud. My Lodgepole Companion performing, as I write, the oh so necessary miracle of photosynthesis. The 60’s and San Francisco. Flowers in my beard, maybe? That day before leavin’ feelin’. Lots to do. Lidocaine patch on. Ready for the day. Living.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Amtrak
One brief shining: That Travelpro lies on its back right now thrown open, zippers dangling, ready to receive that which I decide I cannot buy in Union Square and that which I’ll need until my new clothes arrive from Bonobo’s, my meds all ready for their placing in those plastic containers so familiar to those geriatric others out there, electronics and their necessary cables, charging apparati are still in place doing their work and will be snatched up last.
Oh the things we’ll see and the places we’ll go. As this, the last day before vacation, has arrived my mood has that pre-trip lift. No fussing around. Stop the mail. Get a pedicure. Text Marina about the key for Ana. Gather Hebrew pages. Run the dishwasher. All that kind of thing.
I have some pro-travelers in my life. My brother Mark has lived most of his adult life on the road, out of the country. Hopping from Southeast Asia to Saudi Arabia depending on work and his whim. My sister Mary has lived most of her adult life in Southeast Asia. She’s made the most of it, not thinking twice about traveling around the world to visit friends and family, for work helping the educational systems of various countries, teaching in Japan. My son travels internationally many times a year, currently lives in Korea, before that Singapore and Hawai’i. My buddy Mark (aka Mario, Sam) Odegard has made of travel an art form, a venue for taking risks, for learning about new cultures, for adventures with Babbet. Friend Paul Strickland has visited many countries, gone round the world. Tom traveled for work, a lot. Me? I look at them and marvel. How they can decide just what to take. Make all the arrangements,handle the inevitable snafus. They are my role models.
Well, two more. Mom and Dad. Mom made the daring decision to join the WAC’s in WWII, getting sent to Europe and north Africa with the Signal corps. She saw Algiers, Capri, Rome, London. The first of our small family to leave the country for points beyond these shores. Dad though. He was the ur traveler even though he only got beyond North America once as far as I know. He just loved to go. We went to Oklahoma a lot. His birthplace and mine. We went to Canada, to Stratford, Ontario. We went to state parks in Indiana, to Air Force base museums. After his sort of retirement, he and his then wife, Rosemary, traveled Indiana going to places with curiosities that Dad wanted to see for himself like the really big ball of twine or the river that disappeared.
Though I’ve been more modest in my getaways, I’ve had my share. What I do have though is the travel jones. Every once in a while, I need to go somewhere. Of late, I’ve let inertia tamp that down, but like any jones it’s never really gone. It awaits only a pretty picture of somewhere far away, or a lecturer mentioning the churning of the sea of milk to get me on Kayak or the Amtrak website.
