Friday, July 2, 2010

Places

When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. And let me tell you- I’ve got to go. I’m not running away from anything, I’m looking for something. I have to go and get out and experience all that I can of God’s amazing creation, and somewhere out there I know I’ll find the place that God made with me in mind. Yes, I’ve heard it all, how “home is where the heart is” and “when you’re with the one you love, you’re home.” That’s fine and swell, and probably true, but there’s just something about certain places, don’t you know? I am by no means a world traveler- I’ve never been outside the U.S. except to go camping in the Mexican desert- and while I haven’t seen the most remote corners of the world, I’ve been here and there. And even with my limited experience I know there is something about a place that can draw you in and speak to you. I’ve heard sweet nothings whispered by the raindrops of a North Carolina thunderstorm and felt that intoxicating embrace in the warm clear waters off the coast of Kona. And because I know how powerful that pull can be, I want to see all that I can, from the lush landscape of New Zealand to the haunting hills of Ireland. I want to find out for myself if the wind feels any different standing on the peaks of the Swiss Alps than it does on the tundra of Alaska. It’s not just the exotic and foreign and extreme locales that I want to visit. I want to explore my own beautiful country. I want to see for myself just what shade of gold the sun appears when it’s rising over a cornfield in Nebraska. I want to smell the fog that winds its way into the atmosphere every morning in Maine. I want to watch the clouds roll across the sky while I lay flat on my back in Montana. I want to hear the crickets harmonizing after the sun goes down in Cajun country. I want to know if a front porch swing rocks any differently in on a South Carolina porch compared to a California porch. I want to go and look and feel and explore and know and be in all these different places- places I’ve been before and places I’ve only dreamed of, places a day’s drive away and places I have to charter a team of caribou to get to. I want to figure out where the air is sweetest, the water the freshest, the moon the prettiest, and my soul the freest. I want to find the place with the voice whose echo is etched into who I am. And maybe when I find that, I’ll finally hear, “Welcome home.”

4 comments:

  1. I couldn't agree more. My travel experience is the same as yours- Mexico, haha. But how badly I want to visit everywhere! You are a beautiful writer. :)

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  2. Thanks guys :)

    And Alyssa, I think a trip to Mexico must be some sort of requirement for kids who live in California! Everyone I know from CA has a "Mexico story" haha.

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  3. Beautifully written. Captures the feelings that many people have, Im sure.

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