Skip to main content

Number One

Traveling over the last few years has been specially rewarding for me coming as it does after a long hiatus. There were so many obstacles to getting away and going away - a lot of it self-inflicted but some were true logistical challenges. Freedom has been exhilarating and each trip has made me think of what is has been on the top of my bucket list since childhood. That has never changed and I have yet to travel to my number one place of all places. I am hoping this year I will be able to get there. Any dream that goes so far back becomes imbued with a grand sense of purpose and meaning. This one will not be just any other vacation but the trip that begins to get things I wish to get done before I die - certain places are included there as are goals. 

Recently, a kid I know asked me what made me work hard at my job if I did not have a big project to work on - like a major home improvement project people my age take on for instance. I answered that it was always travel for me - that is my reward for a year of hard work and the thing I look forward to. Any project done or possession acquired does not move the needle nearly as much. We have completed some useful projects around the house over the years but I certainly did not feel like a dream come true when the job was done. Some places I have visited very much felt that way - and these were places that were nowhere near the top of my bucket list. The idea of getting to number one feels monumental. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques