Travel Dreams

Today I received three membership appeals from organizations I've donated to in the past. As requests like these are filed by importance in a wire basket on my desk, I file the ones I think deserve immediate attention in my monthly bill organizer. Some of them get that immediate attention, while others are pushed forward into the organizer's pockets for future months. As I shuffle I almost always think how amazing it would be to be rich and able to give to them all.

I can't imagine winning a lottery and blowing through all the winnings in a few short years the way some lotto winners have done. That astounds and disgusts me. If Mike and I won big money like that there are no things I'd want personally. Travel, yes. I've seen much of the United States, but not the Eastern seaboard and the south. It's terrible, but I haven't visited my sister since she moved to Indiana probably 20 years ago. I'd love to meet friends in Manila and Vienna, and use Vienna as a base for a grand Mozart tour. It would be such fun to visit my nephew now living in South Korea. His wife, who is Korean, has three grown daughters and I think they'd be a pleasure to get to know.

I've wanted to see Switzerland for as long as I can remember, still keep a picture of a Swiss scene that I cut from a magazine when I was eight years old. It's a wonder having this simple thing, a faded, thin piece of glossy paper, still treasured by my inner child (that being who thought the whole world is a garden to be discovered and who was sure her future husband lived in another country, probably Ireland, and prayed frequently to God to protect him). Oh, yes, I'd love to travel around Ireland, Scotland, Holland, and France to honor my roots on my mother's side. And to discover the roots that make up the other half of me, in Finland.

We dream of visiting the children we sponsor in Ecuador and Sudan, as I've mentioned in previous posts. I'd love to see much more of Africa while we were there. In my fantasies I'd see Africa the way Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) did, but I doubt that the Africa she knew still exists. Still, I could tour the Karen Blixen museum in Nairobi and that would be most excellent. I'd love to go on a pilgrimage tour to India, having felt for the last 15 years or so that it would be life-changing for me. I'm just sure that it would be.

I had a wonderful deep-tissue massage today from the woman who has been my massage therapist for 14 years. I started having monthly massage when I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, now certainly in remission, but that's another topic. Sometimes massage absolutely transports me and today that happened. I'm in a still and quiet place now, a good space to wander to all those places I'll see in my dreams...