Going Nowhere Fast (LynnK)

That's me back when, the Uneasy Rider, on a long-suffering horse at a hacienda in Ecuador. The fact that I can bear to look at it, not to mention let anyone else see it, is proof positive of my malady.

The Travel Bug has bit me again. It’s bad. Maybe terminal. I dream trips. Imagine roamings. Hunger for exploring a new place or revisiting one of the many that inspired me to say, when there, “I shall return.”

It’s genetic, I think, this longing for distant roads and unfamiliar scenes. Like most Americans, I’m descended from immigrants who pulled up roots and risked (most of them) everything they had to make a new life in a new place. My father’s parents (who had not met at the time) were late arrivals, coming through Ellis Island nearly a century ago. But my mother’s ancestors, rooted in England since the tenth century, started arriving here in the 1600s.

She and Dad met in a small rural town in the South, where their families had put down roots. And almost immediately after the wedding, they hightailed it outa there. Not because Henry County, Tennessee, was an undesirable place to live. It’s a beautiful area, and nearly all their many brothers and sisters settled within a hundred miles of where they grew up. But they both had itchy feet and a desire to see the world.

Dad joined the Navy, and off they went to exotic locations like, well, Albuquerque. That traditional Navy town! But before New Mexico, we spent time in Panama, where my sister was born, and Asmara, Eritrea. Exotic, yes, but by no means glamorous. That didn’t matter. My father loved, loved the Navy. Mom loved, loved the travel. My little sister and I, infused with the love of new experiences, adapted and thrived.

Dad died, too early, from lung cancer (“Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em”), tended to in his long illness by his wife. And then, free of her adult children and responsibilities, she could at last indulge her yen for the great unknown. All she lacked was money.

And so, despite hands and body crippled from infancy by painful arthritis, Mom created a career for herself. Slowly but surely, she became a well-known bridge teacher, and when the cruising industry got underway in the 70's, they snapped her up. From then until her last illness, she spent much of the year afloat, living her dream. She saw the world, and loved it, and never lost her curiosity or her fascination with everything she experienced. People timed their vacations to join her on the cruises. Enthusiasm is contagious.

Also, apparently, inheritable. I am my mother’s daughter. Was a time when I, too, abandoned a stable profession for an unprofitable career that offered as a side benefit the one thing I could not live without. Back then, the travel profession was rich with discounted opportunities for its underpaid workers. But when that ended, I tried something else. Writing.

The craving for adventure, though, has only developed longer, sharper teeth. In spite of living exactly where I want to be for most of the time, I cannot wait for the next chance to leave it for a trip to somewhere else. And because that is presently impossible, I’m a wreck.

My last non-job-related trip was way back in 2001, when Alicia Rasley and I went to Ireland for a Gathering of Dorothy Dunnett fans and followed up with London, the Cotswolds, Wells, Cheddar, and Dartmoor. We climbed a tor to celebrate the end of my cancer treatment and the fact I could manage to stagger up a hill. At the time, it was an achievement.

That seems a lifetime ago. I’m past due for a fix. Exploration has always been my drug of necessity, and the travel companies know it. I’m constantly trolling their websites. They must scent desperation, because they deluge me with catalogs. Glorious, full-color displays of splendid tours and destinations arrive nearly every week. I press my nose against the virtual glass and quiver with longing.

I'm also a devoted reader of fellow writer-and-traveler Barbara Samuel’s excellent blog, A Writer Afoot (http://awriterafoot.typepad.com/), which I enjoy while seething with envy.

Some of my friends believe that by opening themselves to abundance, it will surely come if they throw up no obstacles in its way. Hey, I’m there! Healthy. Energetic. Chomping at the bit. Yesterday I got my hair whacked off into the Travel Cut: wash ‘n’ wear, blow ‘n’ go. Abundance, I'm your gal. Lavish me.

Today I went to the grocery story, the pet store, and Target, where I failed to find an acceptable space heater for my apartment. Bought gas and put air in the tires. Whoopee.

Not sure, actually, if Worthiness is a factor in the abundance theory. (Note to self: Read more about this.) If it is, I’m pretty much dead in the water.