Thursday, April 7, 2011

Wander Lust



In case you didn't know, the spring always wants to make me travel.

I typed it that way on purpose. It doesn't "make me want", it "wants to make" me, and I say that because the desire to pack up my bags and leave is palpable and unignorable in the spring. It's like April, the greening-up grass, the fragrant soil, is purposely releasing a chemical it knows works as a travel aphrodisiac to me. The month hooks its unfurling, viney claws--fertile tentacles, if you will--into my flesh and brains and bones, it pulls and aches and yearns; it's a terrible, terrible feeling and I don't wish it on anybody.

It makes me cranky and uneasy in my own skin. It's a hedged in, trapped feeling. It threatens to make the everyday routine feel less like a routine and more like a prison.

Then I think about my parents, who have never been to Europe, and how at least I've been twice--once in high school and once in college--and I think about people who can go whenever they want, who hop a jet to Paris like it's the A train to midtown, and sometimes that all just seems too painful, you know?

For a long time I was trying to figure out how to be grateful for what I had, and sometimes that felt like giving in. I felt like I had to be one or the other: grateful or yearning. But you know what? I'm both. I am grateful for what I have.

And I really, really want to go to Europe.

So there it is. It's a Thursday in April. Dewy and cool. The sky seems bluer than it did last month, doesn't it? The flowers coming up make my heart happy. This October I will plant bulbs, and next April I will watch my own flowers grow. And maybe I can plant the travel seeds now, too.

And maybe next spring, my travel-buds will blossom with the tulips.

You never know.

I am Vesuvius and will you forgive me for being sentimental in the spring?

2 comments:

  1. I forgive you, as a travel-luster myself. I managed to wrangle a last minute trip to St. Louis this month, so that will be good. It's not New York, but it's good. Seeing my sister leave Sunday for two months in Europe makes me want to cling and punch her simultaneously.

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  2. I wanna cling to her and punch her, too. Would she take it personally?

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