When I was a little girl, I would pore over a book I had of famous sites around the world. I would study it for hours and dream about all the places I would go. Then Indiana Jones hit my consciousness, and I imagined I was his female equivalent – striking out for the most remote corners of the globe, days filled with magic and mystery. While I never did become a female Indy, I did manage to find a professional life that gave me the opportunity to see the world.
What I didn’t know before I traveled to exotic lands was that some days would be full of magic and mystery and some days would feel like an exhausting, never-ending Groundhog Day of torture. Indiana Jones never mentioned jet-lag, or airplanes wrapped in duct tape, or all-nighters in the Quito airport - but in the end I would be willing to suffer any number of the awful days for just a few minutes of the mystery – meeting the living goddess of Nepal, hearing the chants of Korean women on pilgrimage in Burma echo through the pagodas, an airplane full of men and women on the Hajj to Mecca, seeing the place where Jesus was baptized. I have had more than my share of those moments when I could not believe I was the one lucky enough to have this life.
And I do know how blessed I am, because in addition to all of those places, I have also spent time in places far less privileged - holding a precious, crack-addicted baby in my arms in Atlanta, watching girls no older than ten selling their bodies in Cambodia, little children begging in India, in rehab facilities with people whose lives were shattered by addiction, and countless places with people whose daily lives are ordered by the specter of poverty that hovers everywhere.
The world is both beautiful and ugly, where one always lives in close proximity to the other - maybe it is only in this dichotomy that either is fully known. Without the hope and beauty of the world, the ugliness and misery would overtake us. Without ugliness, there would be no way to truly appreciate beauty.
This weekend, I am embarking on a new phase in my life that I am sure will include both beautiful and difficult experiences, and I am going to blog about them here. My next adventure takes me to the heart of colonial Mexico, to a city named Guanajuato. I am going to spend the next four months studying Spanish and learning about Mexican culture. Though I have traveled widely, this will be my first opportunity to spend an extended amount of time learning about a country. For me to have this opportunity, I had to leave my job, and it is exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.
If you would like to join me on this journey, stay tuned…
