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Far Harbors
Apparently, being thousands of miles away from home just isn’t enough.
Whereas Yvonne has spent the past few days yearning to end her nomadic lifestyle, I can’t seem to settle down. Even though I’ve spent already spent days on the beautiful beaches of the Great Ocean Road (and have the tan to prove it), even though I have plans to go to Philip Island and see the penguin parade soon, even though I know I’ll be spending Easter Break on New Zealand’s North Island—somehow, I want more. More cultural and natural treasures, more outlooks on this crazy world, more new sights and smells and tastes, more challenges, more stories. More experiences in this big, breathtakingly diverse planet I call home.
Don’t get me wrong—Melbourne has been wonderful thus far, and I’m not at all unhappy here. But somehow, knowing I’ll be going home in a few months is incredibly frustrating. There’s so much I haven’t seen, a little voice inside me cries. How can I go back and resume my normal life?!?!
I want to explore ruins in Greece and compare them with the ones in Peru. I want to haggle with hawkers in Egypt and market women in Thailand. I want to drink green tea in a Japanese tea house and Turkish coffee in a bath house in Istanbul. I want to swim in the warm waters of the Mediterranean and see dolphins in the beautiful iciness of Antarctica. I want to see the temples, churches, mosques, palaces, battlefields, and places of state from which histories and cultures and ideas were shaped.
Yes, I have wanderlust—but, really, that’s only part of it. I’ll only live long enough to explore a fraction of the treasures on Earth, anyway. It’s more that I want the world to be… not, a playground, exactly—just a place where I can be comfortable and cognizant and aware, no matter where I happen to be. A place where I can live and love and learn and play and prosper and contemplate and create, unafraid of geography and language and difference.
When it comes down to it, I don’t want these five months to be the only adventurous period in my life, I don’t want to return to Washington in August and never look beyond my city, my country, my shores ever again. I don’t want to ever think of a location as too far-flung or alien or incomprehensible to be important. I don’t want any part of this world to be a mystery—a big question mark or blank space that doesn’t enter my radar screen.
Someday, I hope I’ll have that experience and wisdom, reach that level of sophistication and understanding. In the meanwhile, I—like Yvonne—will continue dreaming. And I will keep atlas and guidebooks firmly in hand.