Two of my favorite words have been floating around mi casa the last couple of days.
Road Trip
Aren't they lovely, those words? So simple...and yet so BIG, or small...I guess...depending on the number of miles between where you start and where you end up.
If you've been reading me for any length of time you know of my desire to travel.
My daughter and I love to watch travel shows and fantasize about going EVERYWHERE.
So, you can imagine how discussing a possible road trip to Seattle with Hubbypants would have my knickers in a bunch (but in a good way).
When I was a kid my grandparents would take me road trips in their motor home. My most vivid memories are from our stays at R.V. parks where I would covet the U.S. travel maps stuck to the sides of other R.V.'s.
How I longed for one of these. A simple blank map with outlines for all the U.S. states - a rather unusual thing for a kid to long for, don't ya think?
The idea is to fill in the map as you visit each state. I loved seeing half full maps. Oh, the full maps were beautiful...all filled in with the colorful state stickers. But the quarter or half full? They hinted of what was to come and I found that ever so mysterious and exciting.
Fast forward oodles of years and I have no motor home and no U.S. travel map sticker. But, I'm over it (not really).
I STILL want one of those maps, but now I want to put it on this here blog. I'm on a mission to fill in the blanks and discover the wonders my country has to offer - and then explore what lay beyond the border. Like, perhaps, visiting these bookstores.
All that will take money...lots of money. That reminds me of a little story I wrote, My Little Secret.
But it's just a story...no, REALLY it is! I wonder how much money those kind of writers make??
Anyhoooo....So, Hubbypants and I are still in the deciding phase, figuring out finances and such. However, my mind has already charted the course, fueled up the car and packed the necessities - my brain has already left the building! (Wow...I pretty much wrapped that up and handed it to y'all with a bow...can't wait to see the comments that arise from THAT statement).
Ah...open road. If this does happen, on the day that we leave, I'm going to jump in the car and shout:
"NORTH WESTWARD HO!" and fire up Willie Nelson on the iPod...
February arrives tomorrow and I'm fully convinced it is a self-centered-attention-hog sort of month. I swear it bullied January into passing as quickly as possible. Wasn't January 1st just last week? What happened to this month???
When February arrives tomorrow, pushing and shoving no doubt, it will bring with it yet another NaBloPoMo opportunity. I participated in the writing-every-day challenge back in November - the anniversary month of NaBloPoMo. It was fun, interesting, hard, frustrating and I'm so glad I did it. NaBloPoMo introduced me to some incredible writers to which I feel very connected.
The more a person writes, the better they become at coaxing the thoughts from their brain to have them travel down their arms and through their fingers to race along the keyboard *tippitytappity* - depositing those ideas onto a blank screen.
It is oodles of fun. Until it isn't.
There is always an, "until"...in everything we do, isn't there?
So, right now I'm trying to entice the story that is in my head to live in my computer instead. These things tend to relentlessly occupy my thoughts! While I'm doing that, I am also contemplating another run at NaBloPoMo. Maybe.
While I write, I am resisting the ever present urge to flee to the ocean. It has my number, the sea, and it keeps calling me. There is only so much nagging I can take before I cave in and give it what it wants. It misses me...I think. So it should come as no surprise that my little story (??is this really a story??) has everything to do with the sea.
The Story
She fashioned herself a crown - not of rubies and pearls, but of bottle caps and sea glass.
With it She sat upon the shore commanding the waves to greet her feet with a caressing curtsy. She would then cast them away with her gnarled driftwood wand, only to watch their devoted return - the waves couldn't keep away, so devoted they were to her. She bid the seahorses to gather the diamonds that bobbed upon the swells, glittering in the sunlight, which She would then feed to the sharks - keeping their teeth strong and plentiful, should She ever need to declare war upon the destroyers of her realm. People pass by, with headphones and cellphones and chatting partners, blissfully unaware of her. They might imagine seeing a girl seated upon the sand, gazing toward the horizon.
Did they see the diamonds? What about the chorus of turtles, or the jellyfish ballet? No, they didn't. Her Queendom performing for her eyes only. When it came time to leave and do things that are required, expected and necessary, She knew the sea would pine away for her. "Fear not," she says, "for you belong to me and I to you." And so it waits for her return.
Happy One More Day Closer To The Weekend, my peeps.
