edge-wise

Since I left Los Angeles nearly eight years ago, I have kept in better contact with my friends via Facebook and emails. It sounds pretty sorry doesn't it? I told my husband that I cannot live in Alaska without the internet and cyber services. Sandra, my LA correspondent and great friend, communicates almost everyday via emails. We spoke about travel this morning and how important it is for me to get out and see and experience. Travel gives me my edge, fuels me, gives me insight and inspires my work. For the next few months, Ken and I will be scrambling around pooling our ideas, planning and visualizing our routes, making contacts abroad and rearranging our schedules that will entail almost six weeks of a trek to the southern part of India.

Tomorrow, we send our visas out for our trip that takes us to Mumbai, our starting point early December. This trip especially excites me because it will be a mental and physical challenge. We traveled to New Delhi and across the northern part of Rajasthan in 2006. It was a difficult trip for me; the pollution and poverty especially upset me and I came home not knowing if I truly enjoyed myself. It was an acute pleasure/pain experience. For our future plans, I will prepare myself with armor and learn to readjust my eyes. BUT, you can never be ready for India! I told my girlfriend that you have to travel now! Who wants to wait for retirement when you suddenly lose the nerve to go, to take long journeys across the continent?