stirrings...

What is it about the motions of queueing in line to get a passport stamped, waiting for the disembodied voice over the loud speakers announcing your flight and walking the gangway before settling into a reclining seat that gets your imagination fired up?

At times, I feel my spirit a nomad cos I could never really stay in one place for long. I have restless feet and I've always felt that there is too much of the world to see and explore to be stuck in any tiny corner of the world for so long.

And I've got the bug again. I feel the claustrophobia. It's suffocating and stifling.

I recall standing at the precipe of the Grand Canyon. Silence all around, wind whipping your hair about your face and then... a single eagle soars in the sky. Did you know that this stretch of amazing rock was formed by the flow of the river that runs through it?

Or the time in California, when I sat for a sketch of my picture, wearing a jade-green leaf necklace and fancying a Titanic-esque moment of tinier (less momentous) proportions. When later on, tucking the sketch under my arm, I visited Planet Hollywood and showed my picture to a boy my age, who had offered to buy me a drink and a ride in his car, which I politely declined. He was 16 and from St Louis.

Or in that Las Vegas hotel, where we were all Kings and Queens, at least according to the toilet signs. Excalibur, it was called. And in that room, I had the most terrifying episode of snake dreams that were rather recurrent. It was always the same, me being buried alive under snakes of every length and slimy size you can imagine. So I jumped, yes leapt, from my queen sized bed to the bed of my grandparents beside me and slept at their feet till morning. Oh, the casinos were great too.

Or that time in BKK, all sweaty and walking the streets at night, his hand in mine, searching for some soup noodles at the street stalls. Waiting at a bus-stop, the fumes, the many headlights of cars and the dust dancing in mid-air. I am almost holding my breath now. How I complained then. And how patient he was to be stuck with a whiny brat.

Or that time, walking through the French Quarters on Bourbon street, late at night, with another fool-hardy friend of mine. Too excited at the prospects of discovering the city than to fully realize the dangers that two puny girls on an entire street of drunkards could be in. Or drinking at an irish pub with foreign reps from Germany, Italy, Australia, S. Africa, me, her and some MTV crew sitting at the same table.

Or another time in Canada; the snow fights, the snow slides, the maple cookies, the huge fire place, prawn cocktails at Niagara falls, a field of tulips, skiing, wooden lodges...

Sometimes I travel to get lost, sometimes I travel to go in search; always I travel when I feel I have lost a passion for life.

I want to discover, prod and sniff around. Life is too short, the world is too huge, to be too hung-up on one place.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go... at least mentally.

Mood: Still wonky
Listening to: Beverly Craven's Promise Me