My Travels

 We are all moved with ancient impulse. Those items inside ourselves called instincts. The underlying forces that we can only feel, or experience in retrospect while they possess or consume our actions. They mold, mend, drive and determine so much about us. Yes things can be controlled with our hearts and minds. There are times when we can overcome the reactions. Mostly though, we are creatures of our habits, our mindset, and it is will terrible effort that we can override the reactions.

So many, it seems, believe that if you just want it bad enough, that if you want to change then you will just be able to. To the layperson I feel this is a myth. As much of a myth as government is good or that war is necessary in any circumstance in the modern world. Instead I think that it is a great deal more I firmly believe all those self help, psychologist, psychiatrists, counselors, etc that just say you could do it if you wanted to, either didn’t have real issues in their life, or had a lot of help and just passed it off. I cannot reconcile what I observe with what they say a person “should” be able to do in those circumstances.

On the missing of people:
When I was younger, my father was a traveling salesman. He would leave for days or weeks at a time. Then be back for a few days. I never missed him. When he was gone he was not in my mind or thoughts. When he was back I noticed him. When he was gone I did not notice his absence. We also moved at least every year,  on an average, which also assisted me in my nomadic tendencies.

So now here in my mid 40s, I want to move more again. I want to live on a boat, sail all the waters I have been on, cross the Atlantic on my own, just live along the tide and wave.

The Car, Buses, Planes, Ships, Movement in short

This is where inspiration strikes me more often than not. The sense of movement, actual movement, going somewhere, is where I am often the most creative.
I have written stories while driving my car on the interstate, sitting on a bus riding somewhere more times than not. Planes have yielded poetry to me, while cruises have been fine fodder for stories, near novellas, and other similar creative writings.

Not always of course. But last year, in 2007 and into the early months of 2008, I was commuting 49.5 miles door to parking lot for work. During the 12 mile stretch of one road it was fairly stop and go for about half of it. So during the interstate portion before I would think, sunrise hitting about the time I was getting off of it, so then I would have adequate light to write by. So with my spiral notebook I would jot down poems, story ideas, just observations, during the frequent red lights I would hit. Sometimes the writing would bleed over into the (should be) driving time. Not a single close call though, so no issues on this end.

So the act of driving is inherently creative for me. It does make me wonder what I could create if I was constantly on the move, how it would or would not affect me. This is something I have wondered for a while as I look into a more vagabond sort of lifestyle to sustain parts of my spirit that have languished.

While in the Reserves I went to

Lets see

In eleven (11) years in the US Navy Reserves I went to a few more places in my life.

So in the interest of completeness of my travels and documentation to the best of my ability here are the ones I recall

San Diego                                2 weeks

San Diego                                2 Weeks

Washington DC                        3 Weeks

Washington DC                        2 Weeks
San Diego                                2 Weeks

Port Townsend, WA                3 Weeks

Port Townsend, WA                2 Weeks

USS Stark in Caribbean           2 Weeks

That is it. There was one year I did a class right in town, and 2 times I waived going. So that is all of my trips in the US Reserves, besides 2 single weekends to Long Island, NY

Some General Observations on the open Ocean

Getting back to the waters I have traversed. I had that list posted a few days ago, or so. Listing lots of the different bodies of water I have sailed on. Just remembered that I almost made it to the Barents Strait and Sea, and I did go up the English Channel one time. The ship got close enough to see England on the Radar Screen. That was after we had visited Brest France for several days. Brest is another entry.

But more on waters and general observations I recall having made.

I have no problems imaging that there are hundreds, thousands, miles worth of water passing below my feet. I have a massive fear of heights. But there not a fear of the water, not a fear of the Deep Blue. Which was a very cool movie one that I recommend finding at a Movie Rental place to see the beauty of the water.

So when I would be out on the open ocean during my sea time in the Navy, I would spend what scant free time, around sleeping and work that is, out on deck. I love the ocean feel. I can look out and know that there is no land for over a thousand miles in any direction. I can know there is nothing out there visible and I love it.

Sunrises are awesome normally out on the deep ocean. The same with sunsets.

At night there are no city lights to interfere with star gazing at all. Sure clouds will. But they are born of the same segment of the planet as what I was floating on.

The Island of Corfu

While on my third ship we stopped in at the island of Corfu, in the Adriatic Sea. It sits off the Italian coast, between there and the former Yugoslavia. Which reminds me of the 3 times we had visited Trieste as well, which became my favorite Italian city of the few I got to visit.

Corfu is a lovely destination for European vacationers. Inexpensive, in the Mediterranean Sea as well as picturesque.

So the main memories involve 3 large double cappuccinos at a local coffee shop, and being so wired I would not stop talking for hours it seemed like. The awesome ice cream bars at the wandering street vendors, and the best pitas I have found from a little place just around a corner with the spit and the lamb turning right there.

Just great food, lovely little island, some nice scenes. I bought some coffee cups there that I still have.

East Longmeadow or Worcester, MA Part 4

I know that I really enjoyed us living there. I think this is East Longmeadow, I know that going a few blocks in the other direction there was some other people, slightly older, that would occasionally help us, almost babysitting level, more the you are too young to be truly left alone and also with a under 2 year old younger sibling, if I have my dates correct. So there was that also.

The time and distance dilutes the accuracy. But I am pretty sure this is where we lived at when the neighbors took my sister and I to church (Raised Roman Catholic) and we took Communion long before the possibility of Confirmation. From what I recall Mom telling me her mother, our Nana Mary, was more than mortified that this had happened. I don’t recall it was all that big of a deal to Kelly (my sister) and I.

There are some other random scattered memories of there, tree trunks on that one large hill, thunderstorms I really liked, etc. But this covers the main time when we lived there. Which had to be almost a year, maybe a little more, only recall the one winter time so it was the usual year or less in one place before moving onward as a family?

East Longmeadow or Worcester, MA Part 3
So we had a huge yard here. I recall I had to push the mower around several times doing the yard. It stretched back so far, that with the trees, it seemed like, in the back yard area, that I could not find the house at all. There was also some large stretches of nicer yard towards the front, I recall those as well. But the back yard with the trees was the main element that sticks in my mind.

Lots of large, to me, trees back there. The fence ran along the sides of the property. I cannot recall if it went across the back or if my sister and I just crawled over the fence to get out. Once you got far enough back it seemed to go almost wooded. Lots of trees and we would spend hours out there walking around, wandering, exploring. The only bad time was in the winter, one time; my sister fell into the water. Large sections were pretty close to marshy. So we had to walk back with her cold and upset. Otherwise nothing bad ever happened to us out there.

I know at one section far out, a good thirty minutes of walking or so, the woods opened up into a wide tract with large sets of power lines running down the middle of the open cut section. I recall the poles were large and carrying multiple lines.

East Longmeadow or Worcester, MA Part 2
Suffice to say that is one of several memories I have during the time we lived there.
Along that same property, on the opposite side of it, was a large sort of hill, ridge. We would climb up it, getting good 4 or 5 stories in height at the summit. Then we would look down at the house down there. Back a little lower, there was a trail down into the almost valley like (best analogy) part of the property. Down towards the bottom there the people there, I think we played with their kids, there was a tire swing on a long, very long, rope. I would not get out too high, fear of heights once more. But I know in the year some or less we lived there, that I swung on it more than once. It was just no where as far out nor as high as the other kids would.

I think we used to sled down it, the one winter time we lived there. I know I spent some time across the street there, and on our side of the street right in the same sort of location. The water would run down and collect into a pond it seemed, deep enough to take my shoes off and walk in it barefoot. The distance was only like 2 or 3 houses down from ours, so it was not too far away. I would make boats out of milk cartons, how prophetic now in hindsight, and float them down in the water when it was pooled there.

I think my sister joined in a few times. But I did make more than one milk carton boat to play with

East Longmeadow or Worcester, MA Part 1
Back in, had to be the 3rd or 4th grade, we lived in East Longmeadow or it was Worcester, MA. I know we lived in both places. Of these places one was on each side of moving to and back up from Virginia as a family. So I am not sure which, I think it is East Longmeadow, that these memories truly belong with.

So I faintly remember the house for the couple of times I hurt myself there. One time, across the street and a few houses down from ours, there was a long dirt and gravel driveway leading to one “friend’s” house. The house on the same street as ours had a garage in the back. I faintly recall one time I was climbing on the garage. I fell off, making this short and sweet. Well I landed flat on my back and as far as I know, this was the first tie, it could not be the last time I had the wind knocked out of me. So I remember lying there, struggling to get to my feet, gasping trying to get the air back into my lungs. I know there were others there, I do not remember who else was there, if my sister was along with me or not, odd if she would not have been at that time and age, or even the exact details of how I with a fear of heights got to the roof. I think, as I sit here and type, I think that there was a tree up against the wooden structure that allowed me to make it up there.