On the Road Again

It's 3:44AM back home and one of the only acceptable reasons to be blogging at this hour is when you find yourself waking up in a different time zone. I write this from about 1,200 feet up in Mont-Tremblant, in Quebec. Beside me sleeps one of the reasons I find myself in Canada - my three year old nephew (the rest of the reasons are in the kitchen, already prepping breakfast). It's incredibly lush up here. Yesterday, we saw two deer on the road up to the resort. I'm half expecting a bear (or two) to peer over the bedroom window.

On the flight to the Bay Area a few days ago, I immediately felt the intoxicating rush of traveling. I have not gone on a big trip again since Asia and it's amazing how I feel utterly at home away from home. From Toronto, it took us about eight or so hours by car to get to Quebec, with a two (or so) hour stop in Ottawa for lunch and a walk around the Parliament Building. I was told that Ottawa is the country's capital but other than that, I knew nothing else. So I was completely unprepared for this grandeur:












I feel like I am in my element when travelling. I dissipate into anonymity, albeit temporarily. I don't create an alternate one - I lose my own into the possibilities of the newness and the strangeness. I am surprised. I am challenged. I know nothing and I am humbled by it.

Last night, after dinner, I had to call the front desk to ask where the dishwasher soap was. There was a long litany of menu options and in the midst of the recording's ramblings, I apparently missed the part where I was supposed to "press 9 for English". For a full minute, I listened to the unintelligible barage of French. It was lovely and maddening at the same time. I made my nephew listen to it and the silliness of it made us burst into uncontrollable giggles. When our French lady friend on the other line was done, we dialed again. We had to!

Everything is fleeting. Even our memories fail us sometimes, and eventually, we lose them entirely. But if our every moment is filled with the silly, the giddy, the loving, the happy, the hilarious, then I am not afraid for that inevitable loss.

A bientot!

Namaste.