Mental Traveler

Isak Dinesen said, "I am an arm chair traveler...." I love to travel, in my imagination or for real." This morning I saw photos from Italy and was there. Made my morning to see these snapshots taken by a friend of a friend. The photos conveyed crisp air, the sounds could be found, the senses went on a ride. I realized that it's so easy for me to travel...mentally. I am a visual thinker but having been read to during my formative years, I think, contributes greatly to this ability. When my mom read me stories I had the pictures running in my head, they were not in the books. There was more than just pictures, it was like film but I was able to imagine the sounds and smells and would find myself catapulted into an experience and this is why I loved being read to. When I started reading Isak Dinesen and M.F.K. Fisher in junior high, I was traveling and hooked on books about women and their travel. Although these books transported me I realized that it was their words more than my imagination that created the experience.

When I came upon On the Road, I remember craving more and more of this landscape. When I'd lift my head and find myself not where I thought I was there was a bit of culture shock. Sounds that I had not noticed when with Sal and Dean were loud and actually sharp enough to hurt. I'm easily whisked away when it involves words and other places, other times.

For many years I never felt strong enough to go anywhere "far away". I suffered from claustrophobia, a side effect, I feel, from several years of spelunking unexplored caves. I was part of a group that would enter the unknown and map it out. I'd often find myself in a very tight spot for an indefinite amount of time. A few years ago, bus rides with Barbara Grizzuti Harrison's Italian Days proved to offer more than mental escape from the #5's route. It changed the course of things. I found myself at an impasse and made a decision at that point, between Rome, Abruzzo, Venafro (or chapter four) to just leave all that was(ideas,thoughts,feelings,ties,things and such)behind and just start over. No occasion, no milestone, no real reason for it just inspired, I guess, by the picturesque paragraphs to start doing things differently. I was being faced with the sort of feelings I always found myself faced with post travel, an itch to scratch, fickleness, change things up, start over. The book had served as a real voyage.

That course of events ultimately led me to meeting the person I married and someone who has inspired me to do more than just mentally travel. With Mr C. by my side trips and voyages are being planned and made. But until we can get our time off together pictures and words from excursions to foreign vistas really, really send me.