Coffee Chat: Well Traveled

I said earlier this month that the leaves on the pecan tree were getting thinner.  I looked out the window this morning into the front yard and realized my Faith tree is completely bare.  Leaves scattered all across the ground underneath and over the patio and I'm sure partly cover the front porch as well.  There was no brilliant color this year to enjoy, as we had too much dry fall weather and too warm temperatures.  I have a feeling the lovely drive I took on the way to Mama's and back the other day is going to be the bulk of what we see for autumn color this year.

John is off having lunch with his former work partner, and I am home alone with time on my hands.  And while I have a ton of tasks I might do, I have instead, settled down with the computer on my lap to write because if there is anything I miss in my current season of life, it is the uninterrupted, quiet time to write.  

I said long ago that Katie and John both were constantly needing my full attention. Half attention wouldn't do for either of them.  Katie has grown out of it but John...well John was full grown and wanted to be the center of my attentions and nothing has changed in that direction.  My 'alone' time comes when he is fully absorbed in music or a vlog that he's listening to and for which I care nothing at all.  I try to grab my chances then to write, but I promise you at some point, when I'm just getting into my zone, he will suddenly look over and start talking or his music session will come to a sudden halt, and he wants to talk over what he's played.  And if you were to suggest he's selfish, then you'd be quite right.  For all his virtues, my husband does have some selfish tendencies.  He owns that himself.  

At times, if I'm feeling particularly needful of the writing time or the concentration, I will quickly shut him down and he will sulk or get huffy and mutter which rather spoils the mood for us both.  For the most part, I can tell you that I am a fairly patient person.  No, I'm not straining to pat my own back here.  It is as much a fault as a virtue this patience of mine because I tend to forget that I have the right to be busy, engrossed in something beyond the people or chores that surround me on a daily basis.  I have not exercised my voice nearly enough in that direction.  

I am accustomed to 'giving up' and giving in and while it might lead to peaceful outcomes, it does not satisfy the way a good writing session might satisfy.  Nor do I take pleasure in the many times I've felt inspired by something and before I can nail it down, I'm interrupted, and I never again recapture that inspiration.  It's gone, like a leaf tossed off the tree at the end of the season, lost among the clutter of leaves all around it, never again to be recaptured. 

If I can call John selfish, I also can say that of the two of us, his is the stronger personality because he's not giving up on something that is important to him, whereas I...  I will let it go.   I will give up and move on and usually swallow down the resentment I feel towards others.  

The other day we were watching a vlogger who calls herself a nomad.  We watch quite a few of these nomadic types who spend most of their time traveling.  I also watch a vlog on my own and the young woman operates a seasonal bed and breakfast but out of season she is flitting here and there.  Off to Vienna, off to Paris, off to South Africa, Korean, Japan, Vietnam, the Middle East, Scotland, England...   I vicariously live through and enjoy these travels.    The day before, a former co-worker of John's had stopped by, and he shared that he and his wife belong to a time share that has allowed them to enjoy travel.  They'd spent a week in Paris, toured New Hampshire and New England last fall, gone to New Orleans.  The partner John is having lunch with today went to Amsterdam and Paris this fall and routinely go to Germany.  

And I... I smile and listen and enjoy hearing all about it

So, John says to me, as we're watching this vlog.  "I wouldn't care to travel all over the place all the time.  I want to stay home!"  I said nothing.  After a few minutes he repeats himself and says, "Don't you agree?"  And I thought about all the places I've so wanted to see, within the U.S., in Europe.  "I can't say.  I've always longed to travel but I've never gotten a chance to do any, so I don't know if I really like just being home or nomadic.  If I were able to try it, I might find I miss home too much.  But I definitely know I'd love to travel.  The opportunity just never seems to arise for me."    John sat there for a bit and said nothing.  

John has traveled.  He's been to various states throughout the U.S., and he's lived in Thailand and the Dutch West Indies.  But it's perfectly true that he is a homebody.  He's had opportunity to test travel out and he is all for being at home with his own home comforts and his usual routines.  I've said before that we are rutty sorts. 

The town where we go to church and do our shopping is a military town.  People have come from all over, people who have traveled extensively live in that town and the small towns surrounding it.  I have never felt half so left out as when a group of these men and women sit down at some point at a small group or at a meal.  I listen as they talk and share their common experiences in the various places they were stationed or lived in Europe and Asia and the U.S.  

At some point, someone will turn to me, noticing no doubt that I've been quietly listening and will ask, "And where are you from?"  "Here.  In this area."  "But where have you traveled?"  "Nowhere.  I've been here my whole life."  People always look so puzzled.  How can anyone just be in one place their whole life long?

I've only traveled to a handful of southeastern states.  I've not even seen all of the state in which I've lived my whole sixty-five years.  When I was a younger woman, I dreamed of traveling the U.S., driving all along the whole coastline.  I dreamed of just traveling my own state and living in obscure little, small towns for six months at a time before picking up and moving on to another obscure small town.  I've dreamed of traveling the states, of the countryside of England, Ireland and Scotland.  I've dreamed of staying in villages in Europe for six months or so at a time. Yet here I am after sixty-five years, and I've been nowhere much, and it appears I shall not be going much of anywhere in this lifetime.  

It wasn't lack of wanting to go.  It's just never been a possibility. There was no money.  There was no bravery in me to attempt it without money.  I was someone's protected and sheltered daughter and then I was a wife and then I was a single parent with three kids on my own and then I was a wife again with no money to go and do those things.  In the back of my mind, I've always held on to the 'someday' thought of being able to travel.  But here we are.  Still unable to find the opportunity to grasp hold of it.

I'm not bitter over it, but our conversation that day was another of those moments when I realized that with time passing as it has, it's unlikely I'm ever going to capture a moment of that dream.  

John said to me once in the past year or so that if he died before me, he wanted me to take money out of our savings and 'Go someplace.  Don't ask anyone's permission or worry about the future, just DO IT."  And I promised I should.  But I don't want to hurry his demise by wishing he'd die just so I might have a chance to go!  I'm not that keen on travel that I'd wish away days and years of living with someone that I love dearly.  Nor for something I might not enjoy as much in fact as I have in dreaming about it.  

People might well look at us and say, "Oh but you've had some decently substantial windfalls.  You might have gone!"  It's true.  But I tend to look harder at the long-term picture than I do the short-term gratification.  

We are debt free.  If we weren't our retirement years just now would be unbearable.   We paid off all of our debts save our mortgage with one of those windfalls.  Our home got paid off with another windfall.  We were able to set up our house for our most senior years through the last one and to put some funds in our savings.    Long term those things will certainly be worthwhile.  If there is ever another windfall, we'll likely purchase a newer vehicle with fewer miles than what we have on our current car. 

I am not completely without any travel experience.  As I said, I travel vicariously.  I've been all over Europe and Asia, South America, Africa, the U.S.  I've seen Canada and the Arctic and Japan.  I've read all sorts of novels and non-fiction books that painted word pictures of foreign landscapes and helped me gain some understanding of cultures other than my own Southern U.S. background.  I've seen travel books and documentaries.  

I've watched as vloggers shared their experiences or listened to dinner companions as they shared what they enjoyed most about the places they've been.  I've watched cooking shows that were set in various places and got a feeling for and sometimes a taste for foods I might come across had I actually been traveling.  Living near an international town as we do, I've had the opportunity to try various cuisines (except French.  No one seems to have a French restaurant!).  

I've had cookbooks that shared cultural influences from various regions of the world that translated into American foods. I have traveled in spirit, if not in body. I've enjoyed every minute of it.  In my mind, I've been all over the world, far greater distances than money would ever have allowed. And I am grateful for every one of those experiences.  All of them.  I've missed only the ability to experience the aroma of a country perhaps but not the views or the foods.  I've missed the ability to feel the soil and rock underfoot, but I know the terrain to some extent.  Had I not been a reader, or a cook, I'd have missed out on far more than I have!

My cousin grew up in a small mill town here in Georgia.  She married a young man with ambitions who went into the Army.  They traveled all over Europe and into the Middle East.  After he retired, he became a contractor, and they continued to travel in Europe and the Middle East.  I recall vividly a letter she'd mailed to Granny who allowed me to read it.  There they were living in Italy and Elaine bewailed the lack of collard greens in the market and gardens about her, lol.  I thought to myself, "She's not said one word about the wonderful foods she does have the opportunity to try!" 

 And do you know when I met her again years later, when she was living here on this property the only thing she ever mentioned to me about the food culture of any of the countries was Turkish coffee which she described as being very strong and sweet.  That was it.  She didn't speak of the travels or the foods or the people. She'd spent forty years living abroad and all she wanted was to come back to Georgia and make collard greens.   

There you are.  I was just hungering to travel and all she'd wanted to do was to stay at home in the small town she'd grown up in and have things the way they'd been.  That's the way life is, isn't it?  Like myself, Elaine loved her husband dearly and where he went, she happily followed.  I doubt seriously she would have given up a moment of the time they had together.  But travel wasn't for her.

And so, if John wishes to limit our travels to St. Augustine or the occasional day trip, I'll stay right with him.

In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy reading.  

I shared the night I was asked to share my writing with the senior group, that my most burning desire in life had been to learn to read and once I'd learned to read, I longed to write.  I spent many years not writing.  Or hiding whatever I'd written away.  My father and my first husband were the sorts to ridicule me over things I'd written.  Even well-hidden things were ferreted out and exposed and ridiculed.  Eventually I gave up writing.  It just wasn't worth the humiliation I felt over my own words and feelings that I'd expressed in a poem or journal entry.

But when I met John, that began to change.  For one thing, he played the guitar for me, sharing a couple of songs he'd written.  I didn't know at the time that it was my enthusiasm for his talent that made him want to play once more.  His former spouse had felt it was a useless hobby and a waste of time, and he'd eventually given it up.  

I still recall him standing before me one evening as he was preparing to leave for work. He turned and said, "What did you always want to do that you haven't done?  Or don't do anymore?"  I looked up t him and said, "Oh I wanted to write."  "So why don't you do it?"  "I'm no good.  I don't know how.  I'll never be rich or famous or earn money with it...so it's just a waste of time?"  "But if you enjoy it, it's not really a waste of time, is it?"  I remember how after he left, I sat pondering his words, then I dug out a notebook and began to write.  I started to keep a journal once more.  I wrote a few poems.  I tried my hand at short stories.

Then we moved here and eventually we got a computer. I took some online writing classes, most of which were pilot programs for a fledgling writing course a professor at the University of Berlin hoped to launch that would be completely online for students.  

I struggled to find my place, my genre.  One night I sat up in bed and said, "Penny Ann Poundwise" and there was my inspiration and my imaginary mentor all in one.  I started a Yahoo Groups newsletter by the same title.  I sent out my first newsletter 27 years ago this month.  I had ten subscribers and honestly, I am not sure where they ten people came from because I knew no one.  I was helped along by another newsletter author who went by the name of Martha (not her real name) whose newsletter title escapes me.  She stumbled on my newsletter and shared it with her readers who in turn boosted my subscribers to over 250 in a week's time.  And eventually I had a small following of over 1500 readers.

I began to explore the internet, came to authors who had actual websites and e-zines online and then a few who grew to small paper publications who asked me to support their sites by submitting work.  I moved to Xanga, which was a huge growing experience, then made the decision to switch to blogspot because of the disturbing ad content that Xanga refused to remove from their site opening in order to reach any blog.  I lost quite a few readers in that transition and here I've been since around 2011, I think.

I was right in one sense.  I haven't become famous.  For all the classes I was able to take and the constant coaching, I am not grammatically correct.  I earned a few small amounts of money but no, I didn't get rich, nor even earn enough to say I could earn my living or have pin money!  But I have had the pleasure of getting to know so many people over the years and to count them as friends and more than casual acquaintances simply because I sat down and started writing once more.  I've been very blessed in that aspect.  

While in reading about travel, I set out to discover the differences in places and people the world over, my writing has taught me that differences are skin deep.  Commonality is what binds this world together and what I've come to appreciate even more.  People who love home and family, gardening and flowers, cooking and reading share so much!  

Now my dears, I shall close here.  I've had a lovely two hours of time chatting away.  I've managed to make a quick lunch, went out to get my latest book arrival from the UPS man (Sarah Clarkson's new book, Reclaiming Quiet), and have paused to listen to the rain coming down and the rumble of thunder to the east of us.  John shall return soon, and my home will once more become centered around the two of us, in our little shell that we share.  I've so enjoyed this time with you.  I hope you feel the same.  Talk to you again soon.

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