Because of this week's theme, I've been wondering about all the wandering I've done - which, frankly, isn't much. On paper, it's maybe impressive - I've been to about thirty of our fifty states, plus the District Of Columbia & Puerto Rico. I've taken a very slow train from Laredo, Texas, to Mexico City. I've been to Germany twice (once when it was West Germany), to Belgium twice, to France, Switzerland, England, & Scotland. I was awake during an entire fourteen-hour flight to Australia, & awake the entire way back. (I don't sleep on planes.)
& yet, I've lived in Texas for over forty of my forty-eight years. & now I'm back!
Most probably I didn't wander much for the first two decades of my life because it wasn't something that I was raised with. Most likely I'd have scarcely left my home town if I hadn't had a German mother. She took me to Germany when I was six, & I would remember what seemed to be endless rides to mountains & other exotic places. When I visited again eighteen years later I was a little shocked to discover that most of the place we went to were within walking distance.
My mother doesn't drive, & the concept of a family vacation was foreign to us. I remember just one time when we left the city when I was a kid - to visit a friend my mother had in Waco. My mother's boyfriend Ed drove us in his Ford Bronco, & the two of them smoked like chimneys, with windows up & air conditioners blasting. I still feel the sting of my eyes watering in the hellish, seemingly endless ride.
That's it. I was on a plane, naturally, to get to Germany when I was six & not on another one until I was eighteen & flew to Austin for college orientation. (If my car hadn't been broken down at the time, I probably would've driven.) I don't know when I was on a plane again after that - maybe when I went to Germany in 1992, six years after that.
My wife's life has been the exact opposite: her family would live abroad when her father had a work assignment. She's so cavalier about air travel that if she's not missing flights, she's the last one on them. She boasts about this!
Since I didn't own a car after I left Garland, & wouldn't for over two decades (a real hindrance to wandering), I had to wait till I was 25 to be able to rent one. Before that, my transportation for long distances was a bus. I sort of miss buses - not just city buses, but the ones that take forever to get anywhere. I once took a bus from Austin to Dallas - a three hour drive - that stopped at every other small town on the way. It took seven hours. It was fascinating.
My broken arm has slowed my wandering about this new city of mine, but I hope to resume in a couple of weeks. The wandering show has made me a little self-conscious. Anyway - I hope I have a few more years left to wander some more.
Though from my point of view, it seems to me I've spent most of my life just sitting still.
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