i’m living it

Date January 14, 2009

Travel is the funniest thing.

It’s all invigorating at the onset.  There’s the planning or the lack there of and there’s the telling people that no, you aren’t crazy and that yes, you’ll be back.  Then, there’s the going and seeing and swearing that there can’t possibly be another place like this one on all the Earth.  There are pictures in frames and pages of words scrawled in journals and both are gathering dust on a shelf somewhere.

But every now and again a song or a sound or the way the sunshine hits the pavement sends you back to that place- the one that you saw so very long ago– and when it happens the memories come rushing back like streams in a spring’s thaw and that, too, is travel.

Travel.

It’s in the sights, of course, but it’s also in the airport waiting, the train hopping, and the bus catching.  It’s the smell of morning in a strange land and the taste of sweet tea when you come home again.  Travel is photographs and paragraphs and friends all over the world.  It’s trying to wrap up a lifetime of wow in a two dollar souvenir and agonizing over using modern language to describe ancient beauty.

Travel is all of those things and I’m making a life of it.

Category Posted in travel

8 Responses to “i’m living it”

  1. Emily said:

    January 14th, 2009 at 10:09 pm

    You’re so good at putting these types of things into words! Every time I smell diesel exhaust, it takes me right back to my bumpy bus rides back and forth from school in Mexico. What else besides travel can make you get all nostalgically teary-eyed over suffocating smells?

  2. Deanna said:

    January 15th, 2009 at 7:40 am

    Oh write a book already!!!

  3. me said:

    January 15th, 2009 at 7:52 am

    Imperfect words can’t really describe perfection, can they?

  4. Hailey said:

    January 15th, 2009 at 9:47 am

    Please sign my copy of your book. 🙂

  5. Lou said:

    January 15th, 2009 at 10:36 am

    Hahahaha, I have decided that when you get home in the ho-hum of life back in Mississippi (if that is where God puts you for some time), that in order for it not to become “ho-hum” for you, you must FINALLY write it all down…….IN A BOOK!

    Love you, Lou

  6. Amy Laboe said:

    January 15th, 2009 at 9:46 pm

    I hope you’re referring to all the damn fun we gonna have in the near future.

  7. Emerson said:

    January 25th, 2009 at 12:30 pm

    Emily,
    “It’s trying to wrap up a lifetime of wow in a two dollar souvenir and agonizing over using modern language to describe ancient beauty.”

    Wow! What an incredible way of summing up the paradox. We too await the book.

    c and e

  8. Emerson said:

    February 6th, 2009 at 11:55 am

    Emily,
    It is 9:54 am February 6th, 2009.
    Where are you?
    Em