I Didn't Just Wake Up This Morning With A Craving
I Write To Understand. I Write To Stop Time
TAugust, 2021.
During the the church service this week, (actually August 2021, but whatever,) the scripture talked about a woman who had leavened bread and referred to abundance, about having things in abundance, even when you think you don’t
I’ve had experiences with abundance that these stories make me remember. I’m sure I’ve had more, but particularly on the road. It’s on of my favorite things about being on the road.
Continue reading “Abundance”I drove back from St. Louis to C-bus yesterday, ending a long weekend with Wee One and my folks, and a cousin’s bridal shower. Since the beginning of this year, I have made this drive every other month or so, usually alone with WO. It’s six hours, but always becomes longer when we stop to run around and/or get food.
On the drive, there are several “landmarks” I look for on the way that sort of signal to me where I am, and I’m sharing them with you today.
I have been meaning to do this again for the past several weeks, and time goes by and I start to feel constricted by a world unshared, by other worlds I don’t observe. For this week, the proper beginning of a magical summer, let’s Share Our Worlds!
What is the most famous landmark or building you have ever seen?
A weekly chance from Cee! Check out her page and see what other’s think.
Ever ran out of gas in your vehicle?
Oooh, yes. I was doing that door canvassing gig and was in a suburban part of St. Louis. It wasn’t my car, which is why I wasn’t thinking about how much gas it had: I probably assumed it was full. But it wasn’t. I was on a relatively busy street and I was able to pull over safely and walk to a gas station. It was more inconvenient than really traumatic.
Continue reading “Share Your World – Don’t Run Out Of Gas When You’re Exploring!”
When I was in college, I went to Europe to see a friend studying in Bochum, Germany. We landed in Dusseldorf and took the train to Bochum. And around Bochum. Then to Amsterdam. Then to Munich. Then to Vienna where took a train to Beethoven’s house. Then we took a train (a very long and boring train) back to Bochum, and we took a train to Paris. The Metro in Paris was dirty and crowded, but we took it, and went back to Bochum and back to Dusseldorf.
I love this week’s travel theme proposed by the blog Where’s My Backpack? – Arches. There is something so logical and orderly about them, yet still artful, that my organization-loving brain just delights in seeing them. They’re not a product of straight lines, like a rectangle, but have the arced grace of a swan’s neck. I think they’re beautiful.
10 years ago, my best friend gave me a beautiful gold and red journal that is almost sacred to me, so I don’t like writing just any old stuff in it. The first time I traveled solo, I took it with me to write about the adventure, and I’ve taken it on every trip since. Something I haven’t done before on this blog is to pull from those pages, share with you the things I thought, felt, experienced from my various trips, but today, thanks to a prompt about travel writing, I’m going to share one of them
Backstory: I have been part of the travel community Couchsurfing since 2007, and have made many friends all over the world on this site. (It has deteriorated severely since going public and becoming for-profit not long ago, but that’s a story for another time.) In 2009, the fine CSers of Krakow were hosting a couch crash, a several-day series of events and celebrations in one particular city. It’s just an excuse to travel, have fun, get to know cool CSers and a different city in a way you normally wouldn’t. My friend Denise was going to be passing Krakow for it, and, on a lark, I decided to meet her there. These are my notes from that trip. (This post is long, but worth it.):
Day One
Is there anything more delicious than the first shower after a few days? I think not.
Continue reading “Travelogue: Krakow – Best Place I Never Planned to Visit”
Remember the first time I traveled solo.
And I mean solo, really solo. I had taken a trip to San Francisco by-myself-but-with-others with Team in Training to do the Nike Women’s Marathon, and that was pretty cool. I went with other people to appease worried family members. But, in the spring of ’08, before I started my Master’s that fall, I wanted to go abroad. The problem was, nobody wanted to go with me. Rather, they did, but they didn’t have the money or the vacation time to do it, and they didn’t really have an interest in seeing what I wanted to see.
I love to travel. I love the smells, the signs, the unspoken social mores for being in a crowd, seeing the different people, seeing the same birds. (A pigeon is a pigeon is a pigeon!) For those that have followed my writing for a bit, this will come as no surprise, but my favorite part about visiting a new place is the imagination fodder than travel provides.
Case in point:
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be an astronaut. Actually, I wanted to be the first woman to go to Mars. (I figured that men would already be there, and I already knew, even at five years old, that women had less privilege than men, and I thought it was that much more important that I go.)
In my imagination, the furthest I’ve traveled from home is into space, into a black hole. They are fascinating to a nerd like me, devoid of time, gravity pulling everything to it. Nothing can escape; not even light. I used to like to draw a black hole and the event horizon surrounding it, the point at which you can’t turn back.
Why haven’t we been sucked into one, yet? Like, why haven’t all the black holes been sucking all the matter in space so much that there is no matter? And where is the center? There has to be a point of, like, zero gravity, if you will, the point at which the sucking stops. Where is that? What’s that like? Is there a vacuum bag? Where do all the rocks go, the rocks that are sucked in?
For realz, physically, the farthest I’ve been from home is Krakow, Poland. It was gorgeous and fun. The Krakovian members of the travel community couchsurfing.com organized a weekend of events, and I went a few days early. Poland had not originally been on my list of places to visit, but it was totally worth it
Emotionally, the farthest I’ve been from home was probably August 3rd, 1997, a little town in the boot heel of Missouri. The darkest night of my life.
I Didn't Just Wake Up This Morning With A Craving 