My vacation piggy bank, which is full of nickels, if I'm lucky.
I don't ever go anywhere. Well, not that much.
I was just talking to Adrian about how happy I am that I'm not really going anywhere this summer. Last summer, I went everywhere. Two weeks in Red Wing for a writer residency thing. A week in France. A week Up North. Ten days in Tacoma. There was always a half-packed suitcase on my bedroom floor. I felt like I was never fucking home.
This summer feels all luxurious to me. I'm only going to Tacoma, which isn't until August, and which is my divine Adult Summer Camp AKA low-residency MFA program. So that whole vast slate of unscheduled time makes me swell with happiness.
And I guess I'm teaching six classes over 3 weeks, but that is fun. Because they pay me to talk about The Hunger Games. Who wouldn't want to do that?
Traveling is not something I do well anymore. This didn't used to be the case. When I was younger, all I wanted to do was get on an airplane and go places. California. Mexico. Italy. Spain. Germany. Colombia. Guatemala. Ecuador.
But then after a really hairy flight to Costa Rica in 2001, I developed the unshakeable feeling that every plane I'd ever go on was going to crash. So that made going places a dreadful prospect.
Even though I have some pretty sweet medications I can take to knock me out when I have to step on a plane, the whole process has revealed to me that I also have some natural trepidations about going to faraway places. I dunno if I need a thicker membrane between me and the world, but I get enough stimulation just walking from my home office into my crappy little kitchen. I don't really need to go to another country in order to get my neurons to fire, yanno?
Also, I like knowing where my hair products are. And having a huge closet full of choices. All the shoes I want. All the belts I want. I hate the constricted efficiency travel demands.
And I only speak English and Spanish (I kinda speak Spanish, but only in emergencies). So I feel like a dickhole going somewhere without being equipped properly with language skills, typical monoglot American.
There are only a few places I'm interested in traveling to anymore. They are:
Italy
Australia
New Zealand
Argentina
the United Kingdom (like, the whole thing. Including Ireland.)
Turkey (shhh, don't tell my father)
I'm waiting until until we have bullet trains under the ocean to go to Europe. I flew like 10 times a year when I was younger, like it was no joke, but ever since I had kids, I'm terrified of flying. Well ... not flying so much as crashing and burning. It's just not how I want to die.
ReplyDeleteI wish you could just be put in a medically-induced coma until you reach your destination. Like, pile people up in the cargo bay and be done with it. I don't want your drink service or your bad movies or to feel the whole giant contraption swoop around and shudder.
ReplyDelete