Well beloved blogger followees...another chapter is being added to the HIWMCA travelogue. Yep we is going to China. Big, beautiful, intriguing, fascinating China.
I'll be honest. In all of the confines of this blue and green coil we call Mother Earth, the Big Red State of China has not been on the top ten places I must see before I leave this mortal coil. It's up there, but not above Africa or England. Been a lot of places...Greece, Crete, France, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Italy, Hawaii...and I have found something intriguing and memorable about each of these. My prayer is to find something lasting from the land of mystery...
In Greece...the strong familial ties. You saw families sitting at tavernas in the public square drinking small thin glasses of ouzo with one gnarled hand gracefully fumbling worry beads. In Crete we saw ruins of ancient Biblical times...and we saw troops in full military regalia marching in formations on the main city streets ("are we at war with Libya?" I thought aloud, not remembering that "we" is not necessarily "us" or rather, the good old US of A, of which I am a card-carrying full-blooded proud patriot. No see because I was in a bus in Hania, Crete, with my Beloved beside me.) The ferry ride to Crete is still ONE of my favorite travel memories of all time. We had decided at the last minute to spend the few extra drachmas (this was pre-EuroZone Greece) to purchase a single berth on the overnight ferry. I was on the top bunk and Beloved was on the bottom and I wrote my parents a postcard that said "Hi all we are having a great time. We are currently closer to Libya then we are to the United States."
I wasn't trying to cause fret among my family, they were smarter than that, but I was sort of enjoying the idea of being completely isolated from every other single person I know on the planet save the buff, sunburnt buzz-cut'd man I was sleeping with at the time...and still am ;)
The stresses are much larger now. It's not just the two of us anymore. And it hasn't been for a long while. We've traveled a lot with these three offspringerles.
Many stressors are assuaged by the complete success my children had in traveling internationally in 2012, yet they are not absent.
I worry about Tank and his skateboard. Just the other day he remarked that he was MOST DEFINITELY OBVIOUSLY going to ride his Pennyboard (a small hard plastic board about the length of my forearm) in China WHEREVER HE COULD. His father rallied back with a reminder of the location of our latest travel destination, The People's Republic of China, and that one doesn't really go out of their way to draw attention in that region of the world.
Beloved has traveled to China a few times before, and each time comes back with fascinating stories to tell and experiences and food and sights that he has never seen anyplace else. His constant refrain "It is like NOTHING else you will ever see anywhere else in the world. It is truly a unique once-in-a-lifetime experience." He calms my fears by insisting that he has never felt safer in his life, that he never once felt uncomfortable or threatened...even though he was the only Caucasian man for miles.
I worry about Doe and the inseam of her shorts. Well...because she's Doe and she's pretty much the most beautiful young woman I know. And she has killer legs.
I worry about Bumpo because she is freakishly tall and freakishly blonde. She will literally stand out as a Child of the Corn. In the Rice paddy.
But over all of this anxiety is a smooth covering of peace. It's like sort of surreal how calm I am. I think people are praying over my family because I'm not nearly as worried as I was 3 years ago before we left for Spain.
Life is short. People die. Unexpectedly. Heartbreakingly. Sadly. Life is taken before we can decide whether to be afraid or unafraid. I am not afraid. And if something were to happen well I hope it would impact the five of us as we were all together, rather than being thousands of miles apart.
The lack of intrigue or interest for that part of the world is probably the most powerful reason for me to go. I NEED to go to this completely mysterious part of the world. I NEED to eat the weird food like grasshoppers (no bear paw soup for this girl). I need to find where I can connect to this world and make it mine.
Even though it's in the People's Republic.
Journey Mercies would be much appreciated.
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