This is not about me. More than 3 months ago, I made the decision to stop blogging because I needed to stop looking within and start looking out. I wrote, “My experiences in Europe will be mine alone.” Now that I’m back, I can truthfully say- THEY WERE. But is that all? Am I crazy to think that 3 months of travel- that’s 88 nights in 21 different beds - being laid to rest in the dusty crevices of my brain is an extraordinary tragedy? Call me attention-seeking, but I did not just return from Europe broke and bandaged to keep quiet.
However I hold true to my promise in refusing to enter the danger zone of my overanalyzing mind. Just allow me one personal note, and that is: in my disconnection from the world, I learned that I can’t NOT write. Though I didn’t publish anything in the virtual world during my travels, offline I still wrote (often by candlelight with ink and feather of course). My experiences are now bound in a journal and if I become a modern-day Jackie Kennedy, maybe they will one day be reincarnated and shared for all the world to read about what a loopy freak I am.
For the purpose of this little blog though, I’m reverting my focus to other people. Because simply, I am fascinated with them. During the course of my travels, I came across a lot of characters: some in passing never to be seen again, some in direct collaboration, some who made my life a living hell, some whose kindness melted my heart, and some whose existence touched me in such monumental of ways that it would be a disservice not to share a parsel of that goodness which brightened my life.
We all hopefully have people like these in our lives. It’s not their prestige or status which merits our respect; it’s their consistent demeanor and acts of kindness. I return from my travels indebted to so many- 5 host families, for instance- that I am reminded to cultivate gratitude. The subjects of my future writings belong to those who make my heart smile. To good people, good friends, good character- simply all things good.
