Travel = the search for illumination

Tick, tock...tick, tock... Time winds down ever more quickly as my departure rapidly approaches. Last minute details are added to the checklist, which still seems only to be increasing rather than diminishing. Two minor assignments are left to complete and how much I dread them, as they represent that last bastion between the academic ties of my life here and the journey beyond.

I've been bombarded by a singular question as of late..."Are you excited?!?" The answer is yes, of course, but the true feeling of excitement still eludes me. I don't think that the full impact of what I'm actually embarking upon will hit me until I touch down in Johannesburg and step into a new world. I am however, vitally aware of how privileged my participation in this project is, and again I believe the full importance of it will only reveal itself to me once we actually begin work.


My thoughts will receive proper organization as I picked up my travel journal at Barnes & Noble yesterday. With the plethora of types and choices available to me, one would think that selecting my journal would be a simple decision. Journaling means you write on paper, journal contains paper to write on, therefore pick journal with paper in it. Fairly straightforward. But no so for me. I have the tendency to surround myself with items that, even in their minutia, represent me or an aspect of me. My journal had to be functional but still represent the essence of my journey. As a closet romanticist I have always been drawn to the travel images of those from the early 20th century. Old leather suitcases in tobacco brown laden with travel stickers, ladies in their crisp linen travel suits, the steam rising from the coal black trains engines, the gleaming silver wing of a prop airplane...all of these are what I still see when I think of traveling. I know that things are much different but this is what I envision - and as such, my journal should reflect that. I was pleased that the final choice embodies that feeling and will also suit my purpose well.

As it is my understanding that we will not have continuous access to the Internet the entirety of the time that we are in South Africa, I will do most of my journaling by hand and then transfer my entries to this venue. For those who think that I won't be able to keep up a daily rhythm of my days there, I say to you "Fear not!" I have done this type of writing before on separate trips and I find it helps not only to capture in ink my impressions but to remind me of great memories that I may have forgotten. And as the days pass by where more time needs to be filed away within the confines of my brain, I know I shall look to these pages as testaments of the great experiences I was able to partake of.

My coming weekend will be spent finishing the travel prep as well as my apartment prep. In the true spirit of spring-cleaning I am overhauling my dwelling and am determined to have it spic-n-span for my return, thus making my arrival home easier. That...and the fact I'm tired of living out of Rubbermaid containers. I am determined to keep the drudgeries of everyday life at bay as much as possible during this trip, even if it means planning quite the ways ahead.

Postal correspondence becoming a relic of past communication, I've the mind to reinstate it's romance by collecting roughly 60 addresses from friends and family for postcards. The librarian in me looked up the cost of postage from South Africa for an internationally sent postcard and has calculated how much I might need to set aside in my travel budget. One might assume that attempting to send that many postcards smacks of insanity, but I beg to differ. As a lover of postcards myself, I understand the simple joy they bring to others once they're received, even if it is only for a moment. Postcards are a tangible reminder that someone was thinking of you. That such a small thing could bring such happiness seems silly, but I've found that it is usually the most simple things that will matter the most.

You should know that I have a separate "journal" that I've been keeping for years now. In it are my confessions during moments in my life ranging from good to bad, but it also contains quotes and passages from books that have spoken to me in some way. Being an avid fan and reader of travel essays, I've collected quite a few pertaining to journeys and coming home and thought to end this entry by sharing a few with you.

"He who does not travel does not know the value of men." ~Moorish proverb

"I think I would be happy in that place I happen not to be..." ~ Baudelaire, Any Where Out of This World

"Territory, you see...is not necessarily the place you feed in. It's the place in which you stay...where you know every nook and cranny...where you know by heart every refuge...where you are invincible to the pursuer." ~"Lorenz" in Songlines

"But at times I wondered if I had not come a long way only to find that what I really sought was something I had left behind." ~Thomas F. Hornbein, Everest: The West Ridge

"And there was a restlessness: a desire to know better the outposts of my limitations" ~ Riding the Demons

"The things I wanted to happen were things that only happen if you don't plan them" ~ Where the Pavement Ends