Wanderlust

I started traveling when I was two. I have lived on four continents, and visited all seven, multiple times in all cases but Antarctica. Travel lights me up, reminds me of the beautiful diversity of life, and ways of life, out there. 

Lately, given the dismal state of politics in this country, I've been thinking about moving. But where? So many of the places I would ordinarily consider are also trending into authoritarianism, distrust, fear. (Or in the case of Portugal, I'll never be able to learn the language. Or in the case of Canada, they just don't want us.)

But what about uprooting every so often and heading out, far and wide, as a... traveler? I don't need to buy a cottage in Brittany, a flat in Auckland, an apartment in Tokyo. I can pay rent as I go, and see the world on the march.

This will all have to wait until Milo the wonderdog has crossed over the rainbow bridge (he turned 13 yesterday; it won't be too much longer, even though at the moment he is spry and full of energy). What we do with the cats, well... that remains to be seen. We've been using a great online service, TrustedHousesitters.com, and it may just continue to do the trick. Or if we set off for extended travel, we can rent the house out, the cats with it. Why not?

We are not getting any younger, is the thing. I'd like to test my boundaries—and what better way than to put ourselves in unfamiliar settings. Bump up against people and realize, again and again, that we're all human, that we all want the same things. (Naive, okay, maybe. But I have to insist.)

A few years ago, in a pub in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, David and I sat at the bar and wrote separate "bucket lists" of the places we'd most like to visit before we die. Those lists, which overlapped well as I recall, have gone missing, sadly, but I'm pretty sure the last few years have taken care of a few of the entries: Antarctica, the Galápagos, Madagascar. 

What's next?