I asked my Polish friends on a Zoom call today (there were 8 of us) how many missed travel and would love to go somewhere to see the world. Only one raised her hand. It's not that no one in that group travels: most have been to places you and I wouldn't even consider going to. Ever. And some do necessarily travel to see kids who live far away or pursue a sport they've loved all their lives (skiing, kayaking). But only one had any curiosity about travel in its own right. To see some place or to be somewhere other than home. And since this wasn't always their mindset, I have to say I'm going to blame age. All but two have passed 70. At this age, home seems better than the alternatives.
The funny thing is, the effort required for getting to new and culturally or geographically different places is lesser for a Pole than it is for an American. Distances within Europe are just not that great. You don't have to fly to get anywhere, but if you do fly, you're really cutting travel time to a short couple of hours. At most. Here, by contrast, distances are huge, public transportation is limited, and you can't get to another continent unless you take a boat or a plane. It's expensive, it's complicated. Add to it age (without even delving into covid issues) and you have the ingredients of a stay-at-home future. At least for my cohort of people.
So am I nearing the time when I, too, will only go someplace if there are family reasons to do so? Am I shortening my range? I detected an attitude of "I've seen all that I want to see" among my friends. Is it a sign of being less curious? Less willing to reach into an unknown pot of experiences, because you don't think you'll profit in any way from being somewhere other than home?
One trip at a time. We'll see after my next solo travel adventure how I feel about the whole idea of being away from home for at least a few weeks out of each year.
In the meantime, I snipped lilies. At home. You cannot tell from the photos, but the garden is beginning to think about the tail end of summer. The flowers, the abundance -- all that is still hovering around that famous July peak, but I can tell when the stalks have fewer buds and the leaves no longer stand upright.
Still, that's only detectable for those of us who plunge into the jungle of flowers feet first. To the stroller passing through, all is lush and grand. Here are the farmette photos for today:
Morning in the gardens followed by breakfast. How's that for predictable!
Also predictable: a Wednesday eve bike ride for Ed. I felt like I ought to at least take a walk to ramp up my own movement for the day, so I headed for the local county park. Lovely place. The prairie is coming back just fine and the quiet is awesome.
And heading home, I paused to chat to these cranes. Believe me, they are way louder than me!
At home I did the one social thing today: I talked to Primrose. How I love FaceTime in moments like this!
And I had to think -- are my grandkids going to be my occasional traveling companions going forward? Am I going to be one of those aging grandparents, who is wheeled through the gardens at Giverny by some kindly offspring of my offspring?
Eh, I'm only 68. Years away from worrying about long distance travel. Well, at least one or two years away! Gulp.
