Channeling Dean Moriarty

I spent the Fourth of July weekend having a wonderful mini-vacation in Martha's Vineyard, full of biking, relaxing on beaches, more biking, lighthouse-spotting, shell collecting, seafood eating (mmm mmmm mmm) and a little more biking. I wanted to write up a posting and maybe put up some pictures from the trip all last week, but some combination of low energy and post-trip blues kept me tied up in bloggers block.

Before the moment is lost entirely (though I fear it may already be gone), I'd like to do that. I hate when I have an inspiration -- something I madly want to get down on paper (so to speak) and have half composed in my head -- and don't get around to actually typing it. Soon enough, that magic is gone...and when I try to return to a topic, try to re-capture that initial burst of passion and energy, it's really an abject failure.

Type now, I need to remember, or forever lose your thoughts.

I wanted to write about the magic of travel. How incredibly good it felt to fill up my pack, strap it on my back, put on my Chacos, and hit the road. How much I relished the maps and bus schedules, the ever-changing itineraries and unexpected pleasures (and setbacks) on every corner. How I loved sleeping in a dormitory hostel again, using my sarong as a towel, meeting people from all over the world over breakfast.

I miss traveling. I miss making my schedule up as I go along. I miss meeting new people and dealing with new challenges. I miss being a little bit dirty (travel dust, you know) and a little bit unfashionable. I miss getting plenty of physical activity just from moving from one place to another in the course of a day (walking, biking, carrying a heavy pack) instead of going to the gym. I miss laying on a beach all day, having time to think. Or not think. Or whatever. But having that time and space just for me.

I think about India every day. (Side note: there was another bombing today, this time in Mumbai. Lots more on that subject; I'll try to write about that tomorrow.) I met an amazing couple from India at the hostel, actually, and I could not shut up about how much I loved the country for at least half an hour. We spent hours (perhaps boring my traveling companion, I fear, though she was a good sport) talking about cities they were from and I had visited...Restaurants, roads, customs, stories. I want so desperately to go back. I want that freedom again.

So it was good for me to get away and leave the city; it was good for me to get out of my routine just a little bit. Four days was far too short, but it was enough to both calm the jittery travel bug inside me for a little longer and, at the same time, whet my appetite for more.