I'm homesick for not being home...

...strange as that may sound.

I've been getting all wander-lusty.  I find myself reading copious amounts of Bill Bryson (a wonderful and hilarious travel writer, by the way), watching travel shows, and flipping longingly through photo albums from myself and friends in far-off places.  I crave all foods un-homey and unfamiliar.  I look back on old trips with a kind of fond nostalgia and swiftly leap to the defense of any country in which I have been lucky enough to travel (except maybe Hungary.  Budapest in November is bleak, gray, and depressing.  This may have been my fault for going there in November, but I am not a fan).  I need to be gone.

Not a black-and-white photo.  I swear, all color and warmth was absent in this city.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not anti-America.  I never quite understood why wanting to be somewhere new made people think I hated America.  It's familiar.  It's home.  And I want something new.  There is a whole lot of world out there and I don't want to miss seeing it just because I enjoy the country I was born in.  I love it here, but I don't want to stay here forever.

Some of my travel-longing could be a little rose-colored.  I know many people who respond to my gushings about the U.K. or Prague with a resounding "meh".  They bring up the wet, cold weather, high prices, and floods of tourists.  My history-major husband brings up their history of imperialism, the latent colonial mentality still occasionally evident, and the fact that they speak the same language as we do (when he wants to travel, he really wants to travel.  For him, it doesn't really count if we are all speaking English).  I understand the points they make.  I do.  But I was so happy there, I can never see it as anything but wonderful.

When I think of the U.K., my mind jumps to four years ago, studying abroad.  I remember chili sauce from kebabs staining my hands red as I wandered through Edinburgh searching for the next play at the theater festival.  I remember the surge of victory I felt when I realized that I knew exactly where I was going on the tube in London.

I even knew to mind the gap (without being told!)

I remember singing together in a packed pub in Galway.  I remember screaming along with the crazed crowd at a football match in Bath (and hearing some of the most eloquent profanity of all time from them).  I remember sitting on cliff-edges, my feet dangling over the sea far below, feeling wind and sunshine and sea-brine on my face at the cliffs of Mohr.

I've got a thing for adrenaline-inducing heights.

I remember running through crowded streets to keep up with my friends as we searched for our next hostel, the packs bobbing on our backs carrying all our earthly possessions for four months and tied with clusters of bandannas.  I remember kissing the husband (then "the crush") for the first time and slipping away from the group with him to wander aimlessly through British streets.

We stared in awe at works of art.  We braved fried haggis and mushy peas (both surprisingly tasty).  We paid our respects to Shakespeare's house (and immortalized the serious experience with a series of jumping pictures).

 

I find this properly respectful, don't you?

We walked through Derry with survivors of Bloody Sunday and cried.  We hiked through sheep pastures along Hadrian's Wall (and later ate their brethren).  We were led over perilously rocky shores and cliffs in Wales by kindly old folks who put us to shame with their stamina.

We explored beautiful, awe-inspiring cathedrals.  We spent hours in pubs, drinking and chatting with locals and calling it "homework".  We invaded Oxford and spent far too long in the hall that inspired Hogwarts.

 "Hoggy, warty, Hogwarts..."

We braved drenching torrents of rain and learned that getting wet is not that big a deal.  We wore our clothes threadbare in those four months and did not mind when we were mistaken for hippies.  We climbed cathedral ruins (and were chastised in no uncertain terms).

In our defense...there were no signs telling us not to climb the ruins.

Traveling is beautiful for so many reasons.  The memories of it can transport you to another time and place.  I can jump back to sitting in front of the astrological clock in Prague with a sketchbook and a hot cup of spiced wine.  I can close my eyes and feel sunlight beating down on my face in Rome as we explored the Coliseum.  I can feel my heart leap in my chest as we finally found the most amazing restaurant while searching for food in Victoria, B.C. (hey, not every travel destination has to be too far away).

Traveling opens you up to new ways of seeing the world.  New languages, cultures, perspectives, people.  It broadens your mind and gives you depth.  It can be terrifying.  It can be intimidating.  But it is worth it.  Because you never come away without learning something new.  About other people.  About the world.  About yourself.

About how much stuff you can cram into a backpack...

I know all of this.  I have never regretted any of my travel experience.  It has just made me more eager to be someplace new, to expand my knowledge of how massive and diverse and beautiful the world really is.

So when we move to China in a few months, I will just need to keep all of that in mind.

If you sniff books, use outdated terminology frequently, and are easily recognized by librarians...

...you might be a reader.

The other day, I was talking with a stranger while we waited in line at the grocery store.  We were looking at the magazines and I brought up the new Hunger Games movies and asked if she had read the book.  She looked at me strangely and said, "I'll just see the movie.  Anyway, how can you read just for fun?"

I died a little inside.

 Um...this is exactly what I want to be doing.

I have been reading for fun since I learned to read when I was three by following along as my parents read aloud.  In school, I would sneak books out to recess and find abandoned corners of the playground to read them.  Sometimes, I got so absorbed in the book that I wouldn't hear the bell ring to bring us back in and would scuttle back to my classroom late.  In middle school in Montana, where you go to recess unless it is ten degrees or lower, I made friends with the librarians so they would give me passes to spend time reading inside while my classmates played "avoid the frostbite" outside.

I got in trouble for reading under my covers on school nights, hours after I was supposed to be asleep.  I would sneak away at friends' houses and be found later in a closet with one of their books.  I would spend parties going through bookshelves.  Wait, why am I using past tense?  I still do that at parties.  Just in a more clandestine way.  I hope.

Would have married whoever did this for me.  On the spot.

To those of you who don't understand compulsive readers, let me try to explain.  When we read, we become something else.  We enter worlds that exist nowhere else.  It sounds like metaphor, but seriously.  In those hours that we are reading, our minds and hearts are not sitting in a coffee shop or sprawled over a couch.  They are slaying monsters and exploring new landscapes.  Reading takes us from lives that are predictable, normal, or mundane and lets us be heroes, friends, champions.  Our hearts are pierced by sorrows not our own and lifted by love not ours while we read.   Also, we may start talking or writing as if we don't sound ridiculous.  Because, in our minds, we don't.

It carries over into our regular lives.  After reading, we feel things keenly.  We are acutely aware that everyone around us has a story unfolding around them.  Life becomes more vivid.  Surroundings take on a new dimension when viewed through the lens of a story in progress.  There is color, light, meaning in everything.

Does that sound romantic?  Ridiculous?  Dramatic?  Silly?  That's fine.  We are all those things.  And we're not afraid to be.  Because when you read, there are far worse things than being thought odd or eccentric or strange.  We fear being boring.  Expected.  Common.  And reading takes us past all that.  So that even if we are office workers, teachers, waitresses to others, we know we are more.  We live a different life with every book we read, every character we get pulled in by.  It shapes who we are, what we want, and what we believe we are capable of.

Reading makes us more open to looking ridiculous.  We learn to accept that there could be a lot out there that we don't see, that we don't know everything.  And I think that's beautiful.