There are signs when a woman is ready for world travel.
For the past couple of weeks, there has been a little bird tapping at my bedroom window every morning. I think she sees the reflection of the sky in the glass. It looks so real to her that she’s sure she can fly there. She longs to travel to that strange, backwards world. The bird doesn’t crash against the window. She just clittters a bit against the false sky before turning back into the real sky. I imagine her frustrated and confused.
I know how she feels. I read about so many people and places. I have traveled all over the world in my mind. It all seems so real when I’m deep in a book. I can almost taste the dust of the savanna. I hear the clicks and chirps of strange insects. I have friends between the pages all over the world. Except I don’t – not really.
I’m just clittering against the glass of my kindle.
While modern brain science shows that the mind does not distinguish between reading about an experience and having the experience, the human senses still get the raw end of that deal. Sometimes, even the most introverted bookworm of a woman gets wanderlust for world travel. Sometimes, you just have to be there.
So I’m taking a Wander Tour.
As any avid reader would, I poured over the descriptions and itiniaries to choose one. How I’ve dreamed of India! How I long to taste butter tea! How curious I am of indigenous cultures of New Guinea! How do I choose? Then I found it. The Vietnam and Cambodia tour visits a Confucian school called The Temple of Literature.” Vietnam, with it’s unique amalgam of Buddhism, Confucism, and Taoism shares my deep esteem for education and wisdom. I will go to Vietnam. I will learn at the feet of farmers and silk workers. I will plant rice. I will batik cloth, I will unravel silk cocoons. I will sail a junk on the Halong bay. I will visit monks. I will climb the steps to Angkor Wat.
I will do these things and the kindle glass will not come between me and the wide world.
My sparrow came to my window again this morning. But she seems different to me now. Now she is knocking on the glass inviting me out to fly with her.
Yes, little bird, I’m coming. I am coming.
Read ~ Write ~ Wander
Special thanks to my dear blogging sister, Sarah Shaw, the WanderShopper, for giving me this beautiful blank journal. It will come in handy as I record my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia in the Spring.
(And also, many thanks to my blogging sister Lauren Van Mullem of WanderFood, for taking this picture.)