When asked why she wasn't opening The Yellow Café in California or Cortona instead of Georgia, Mayes mused that she was "looking for the square root of light". Not Italy's scorching summer days or California's Endless Summer. No, the light she sought was the light of childhood.
The light of her beginnings.
Coming full circle.
My journey is a different one.
Throughout my life (since four years old propped in a mound of pillows in the back of an old black Ford Station Wagon on the way to California) I have always been a Gypsy. Travelling, to me, is like breathing air is to others.
I enjoy all aspects of it...from the first time you sit down with the map and trace the squiggly lines to the last load of laundry when you make it home. The packing and preparation. The adventure, discovery, learning. Starting very young as the map-reader and navigator on our long family vacations.
During my career as a Nurse I often said if time and money were not a constraint (or husband, kids,responsibilities) I would have done nothing but work and travel. Everywhere.
And even so...as my late husband was a Gypsy, too...we managed to see, experience, travel a great deal of our 18 years together. We did more...experienced more in 18 years that most people do in their entire life. We worked hard and played hard. We showed our children most of the US.
With FRED (the Glioma) I realized in 2015 that conventional travel and modes of transportation were beyond my abilities, now. The realization was (at first) possibly more upsetting that the original diagnosis...but the past two years have been a lesson in adaptation. With the concept of virtual travel time and money is irrelevant. Since my limitations I have finally been able to explore Maine (always my Unicorn), Spend the greater part of a year in France, and re-trace Mayes footsteps through Spain, Naples, Portugal, The British Isles, The Greek Isles, and Turkey.
I have learned that I can experience travel through Google, Google Earth, YouTube, Books, eBay purchases, Amazon. I can learn recipes from every culture and buy most ingredients online. I can pick up the same souvenirs that I would have in Real Time...often from the same shops. I can spend as little or as much time researching an area and learning its specialties as I want.
In the future I think I would like to devote a book to the subject of virtual travel for others who may be in a similar situation as me...Gypsies who have "lost their caravan" per se.
For me...I have found my Square Root of Light.
It has been within me all along!
And for Frances Mayes and "A Year in the World"...thank you for an amazing adventure.
Later...
