October 2, 2009

The Easily Met Goal

Photo by Anne

In my dreams of the perfect job, I believe the axiom, “If you have a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” I love food; I think it would be great to be a food critic. I love music; I think it would be great to be a musician. I love to write; I think it would be great if someone would pay me to write. (Anyone?) There is one thing, however, that I love to do that I have decided that I don’t want to somehow turn into a job.

I love to travel. Well, I should clarify, I love to get away. I love to have lazy days in places other than my little home. I love to take longer than usual to do everything. I love to be a tourist. I love to read my tour book while taking the tour and listening to the tour guide. I love to take too many pictures of a thing that everyone else is taking pictures of and then pay a little too much for a kitschy souvenir with a picture of that thing on it. I love cruising there. I love road tripping there. I love taking a plane so I can spend more time at the there I’m going too. I love going on vacation.

If your travel somehow involves a job, I don’t think it can really be called a vacation. There are jobs that include travel. You can’t be lazy when you travel, though, because it’s part of your job. There are jobs that facilitate others’ vacations. You aren’t on vacation, though, they are. There are jobs writing about traveling. For instance, people write those guide books I read. Those people didn’t go on vacation though. They went on research trips. They actively sought out information and trivia and timetables and maps. They didn’t have it spoon fed to them on glossy pages with full-color photos and a Metro map in the back. If someone wanted to pay me to scrapbook my vacation photos the way I always do, we might have a deal. Otherwise, it’s okay. My vacations are my vacations and my dream job is what I’ll be doing so I can go on vacation.

So, what is my goal?

A few years ago I made the goal that I would go one new place a year. It has so far been a reasonable goal. Unlike, “See the world!” or “Visit every continent!” it is a graspable concept. It is also a goal that is flexible in the face of the wart-ridden fates of money and responsibility. My new place can be a grand adventure (cruise to Juneau, Alaska!) or it can be closer to home (road trip to Silver City, New Mexico!) or somewhere in between (visit friend in Chicago!), it just has to be a place I haven’t been to before. The place is good because it’s new. I have to change a little to visit this place. I have to incorporate a new set of images into my concept of the world. I get to try something new by being in this new place. Hopefully, I come out a little newer too. I’m now someone who has been to Juneau and Silver City and Chicago.

I just came back from Burlington, Vermont. I learned why there are paintings of rolling green hills with red barns and black and white cows and puffy clouds in blue skies; there is a part of the world that looks like that. I have now experienced the onset of fall in a place where fall is a distinct season. I’ve heard a crow caw as I crunched through leaves and breathed cold air. I now know that Vermonters are proud of being ecologically friendly in the same way that Texans are proud of largeness. I can picture where my best friend and her family lives. I can see why they like it. I can see why they want to come back. I know a bit more than before I went to Vermont.

I don’t know where my new place will be next year, but I’m excited by the idea of it. I’m excited that I’ll choose a place. I like that I won’t quite know what to expect. I like that I’ll learn something there. I like that I’ll be a person who visited there. I’ll like that I got away from here with no other purpose than to go there and enjoy being there.

It’s a big big world and I want to see all of it, one new place at a time.

Then I want to take its picture.

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