Seeing beyond the inner and outer

 I write for my sister  whose wild life can be summed up well by the photo of her middle child. Writing with her as the intended audience was an idea suggested to me by my husband and it has made writing a lot more fun than trying to write for an anonymous reader or a publisher and thus my checkbook.  I relate this because of something she said about this blog. She told me she liked Guided Tour but she preferred my other blog because she “liked to read about ‘life’ stuff”. We were talking online and though I didn’t tell her at the time, when she said that, I laughed out loud, and not the polite cyber messaging type either. It was the kind of laughter that brings your husband from the other room to investigate..  This blog is really about my sister’s life or at the very least, inspired by it because she traveled a lot when she was younger and doesn’t so much now.  I want to travel and can’t presently get reality to settle into a workable pattern in that regard.

My sister, L, lived in Jamaica as a teenager and speaks fluent Spanish because she lived in Mexico as a young adult, where she met her beautiful Argentinean husband, who won’t let that adjective rest if he ever reads it.   She spent summers in Italy and tragically only on one occasion, did she and I go to Europe with an aunt who still travels the world with wild child abandon and a cousin, who speaks fluent French not to mention teaches Italian.  I think her English is pretty good too, but she lives in Australia now and the Aussies might not agree.  I’d have to hate all these women if I didn’t love them. 

Marriage and children will reduce the flow of passport ink down to a trickle and here is the point of inspiration:  L still travels but she does it within her current life, and more locally on a regular basis.   She goes out into her world and experiences it.   If you happen to have three children all under the age of ten, you know how remarkable that is once you know she hauls them with her.  Maybe that’s just me. I only had one and she was the child people see and say, “Don’t have another. You only get one easy child.”  They didn’t tell me the easy child might lose their mind at 15, but that’s okay..  She found it a couple years later and left home, but when that happened, I found myself sitting around waiting.  I’m not sure what I was waiting for, but my sister unknowingly pointed me out the door.  I like to think it’s possible to work a day job and see the world. She certainly is.