Prelude to a Journey

All great journeys start with a small disturbance in the ordinary.  It is a question that flickers in the depths of the imagination and a door that is left slightly ajar in the mind.

Sometimes it arises like a curiosity trying to clear its throat

Sometimes its an incessant restlessness tapping at the hands of time on a watch. 

A great journey begins at the exact moment that staying put becomes the stranger choice.

And that moment of wanderlust has again arrived.

.....

Pull out an old fashioned globe of our planet.  For this exercise, a Google map will not be sufficient.  It is sometimes necessary to hold the tangible in our hand in order to begin to imagine the inconceivable with any sense of understanding.

 Now that you've pulled out your globe, or, in the case of you, the dear reader, your virtually imagined globe, spin it and drop a finger at random at some point, stopping the spin and igniting your imagination.  Look at where your finger landed and read the fine print on that great globe.  What country have you landed on?  Now ask yourself, what do you know about the random place that you have found your extended finger upon?  If you were unlucky, you may have landed on Peoria, Illinois and quickly decided that such a destination is not exciting enough to warrant additional perusal.  If you happen, by greater chance, to have landed upon an exotic place you have never heard of or know little about, then congratulations, you have just been handed a coupon to a magical ticket of adventure possibilities.

Now that work begins.  You look up the country and the name of the capitol.  You read up on the people, the food, the culture, the government and you view the pictures of the landscapes and the villages as you begin an armchair quest.  The imagination wanders and the soul ignites with a passion to learn more.  You begin to realize that you won't be able to really experience the all of what you are reading and watching on the internet to satisfy the tangibility of experiencing it on your own.  You've packed your bags mentally.  Your next act will be to physically begin the process of getting your feet to move the rest of your body away from the screen on into the scene.

We will talk a little bit more about how we got to this point in our next installment.  For now, your homework is to go find a globe and give it a spin.