Traveling Minds

Given a choice, this is where I would be today... 

... with or without all the Greek Orthodox monks.  I'm drawn to the sheer isolation of this place, though I generally hate being alone.  I feel there's a very great difference between solitude and being alone.  I dislike being at home by myself for long periods of time or surrounded by people who don't know me... but solitude is something altogether different.  I'll drive half an hour to find solitude. True solitude is hard to come by, and when do I find it, I'm more sure than ever that I will never be alone.

Every time I see a picture of a place I wish I could travel to, it brings to mind a quote from the movie Gattaca: "I have my books. I go places in my head." The character speaking is Jerome Morrow, one of the most embittered and truly alone characters ever to be befriended by a writer. That being said, I empathize with him in some ways.  Like me, he uses his knowledge, his imagination and the pages of his books to escape - to be anywhere but where he actually is. I don't do it often - I am neither alone nor embittered, and so I don't share Jerome's motive to escape.  Still, the desire has always been there, when I've allowed myself time to stop and acknowledge it.  A nerd by nature, I have never been able to leave an atlas or travel book alone. I want to go everywhere and learn everything. It's very possible to go places in your head with only good word pictures and a healthy dose of imagination, but photographs help. 

When I was a little girl, I put my innate nerdiness to good use.  One of my favorite childhood games involved traveling to distant lands. We didn't needs books to travel. The swing set was our magic teleporter (J.K. Rowling had yet to invent apparition as we now know it). By leaping off of our swings, we could travel through both space and time. Most of the game was spent in preparation for our trip. We were detailed and methodical about it. Our mental suitcases were packed and then reexamined, down to the last pair of wool socks, umbrella or extra bottle of sunscreen.  I remember arguing over whether one pair of gloves would be enough when we got to Greenland. I also remember that when we got there, I found that it wasn't. 

When everyone was packed, and the exact time and location of our arrival established, we had only to work up enough height and then jump. The higher you went on the swings, the further away you could get.  To be sure we'd end up together in the earliest dynasties of ancient Egypt, for example, we had to first be in danger of looping all the way over the top of the swing set.  

We went all over: 

I sometimes wish someone would still play that game with me... I don't often think of it, but it's on my mind now because I had a recurring dream last night that I haven't had since I was ten or twelve years old. In the dream, I have the use of a sort of recreational holodeck like the ones in Star Trek. I always ask to go to the same place. It's a vast slope on one side and a terrifying cliff on the other. I'm sitting on a rock, looking out over miles and miles of translucent blue, green and purple mountains and valleys. I don't know whether they're made of ice, sand or rock. The sun is low in the sky and turning the outlines of the mountains orange.  There is a body of turquoise blue water far, far below me.  The breeze is cold, but not uncomfortably so.  Always in the dream, I want very badly to be there, and then when I am, it frightens me. The height and solitude are so overwhelming that I have trouble breathing. I sit and soak it in, determined to stay, but after only a few minutes, I'm too afraid. I'm relieved when the illusion is interrupted.

When I woke this morning, I had trouble focusing for a few minutes. I felt like I'd just revisited a place that was once very dear to me.  The emotion was powerful. But no matter how hard I try, I can't feel that place in all it's splendor while awake, so I content myself with image searches on my laptop. Gotta love Google Images.