grandaughter's 1st pony ride

So I found out by playing around that I cannot insert a picture into the blog when using my ipad. I can do it from my computer - see?  Don't know why, but it's discouraging because I was hoping to show at least one picture every day while we traveled.  Isn't it ironic that we have all this wonderful technology and ways of doing things that we couldn't have dreamed of ten years ago, and yet, when it doesn't work, or doesn't do what you want it to do it makes for unhappy disgruntlement (is that a word?)

Went to lunch with a friend this week who reassured me that England is, yes, quite wonderful with little serendipitous things to be had around every corner and that overplanning was not necessary.  So Go With The Flow has become my new mantra and I got to practice it last evening when we got to the outdoor concert and the music was awful--thumping electric guitar.  Nope, not relaxing, not condusive to conversation.  We turned around and went inside a restaurant for dinner.  Menu terribly overpriced, but we each had salads and shared a small pizza, plus we had a 20% coupon so all was fine.  Then on to the drugstore where my hubby found hair coloring at 70% off.  So all in all, the evening was a plus.  Instead of turning around and fleeing home after hearing the music, we adapted to a new plan.  Happy outcome.  Hopefully, that mentality will carry us through our journeys overseas and we will meet delightful surprises around every corner.   

The Cost of Travel: Or, You can't have your cake and eat it too

Life has lots of conundrums.  You can't be this if you choose that.  You either have youth or you have wisdom.  You can't be single and married both.  It goes on and on, but you get my point.....

Travel is like that.  You either have the time or you have the money.  When you are young you have the time, the energy, and the freedom but quite often no money.  When you are older you have more money but, at least for me, time is precious.  I'm still working and I only get two weeks vacation.  To "spend" it all on a vacation seems like a big 'cost'.  Money is still an issue, of course, but we're using frequent flier miles and taking the tube/bus in London; staying at a very moderate hotel (even by London standards), etc, etc.  We aren't high rollers...we're middle class conservatives....We chose B&Bs rather than hotels because they are less expensive and they also give a more intimate look at the country and the locals.  Hopefully, we'll meet some nice people and make new friends.  That choice was an easy one.

With all the research we found some of the other lovely places that we could have stayed at:  manor houses and lovely Inns that cost 500 GBP per night.  Tickets to some of the London musicals that ran 150 GBP each.  Again, mildly tempting but not really a sacrifice to forego.

No, for me, this trip is all about the cost of my time.  My precious, precious time.  This will mean two weeks less time to do other mini-trips--perhaps to go see my granddaughter, or spend more time at my annual high school girlfriends reunion, or take a trip to the west coast to see the wine country.  There is just so much time and that's all there is.  It makes me want to retire so there would be LOTS of time.  But then there would be no money (or lots less money).  Conundrum. 

And at this point, we've committed to the trip and I'm looking forward completely to it.  So, I'm paying the price in time in order to have this experience.  When it's completed it will be mine forever.   

The Urge to Travel

I don't know what percentage of the population feels the need to travel.  Perhaps the desire outweighs the actual activity.  For myself, I have conflicting push-pull inclinations concerning travel.  I feel the urge and at the same time I fret over the many troubles, roadblocks, expenses, and possible horrible things that could happen en route.  Astrologically, I'm supposed to love travel, feel freest and most 'authentic' (ha! see yesterday's post) when I'm traveling, and have a good deal of wanderlust.  But my chart has influences that also make me want to be a homebody, keep my feet on terra firma and not take chances.  I'm not a big risk taker and there is nothing riskier than stepping outside your circle of comfort to take to the wide open road.  But, I've read, this is the great value of travel.  Pushing your buttons so that your comfort level is jostled, your sleep is disturbed, your tummy is tested, and your senses are hightened. Traveling to the unknown, dealing with new experiences--figuring out how,when, where; trying to make yourself understood, sometimes to no avail; grabbing sometimes dicey food and drink; missing connections, getting stranded, losing your way.  These are all ways of stepping outside your comfort zone and seeing just who you really are.  The old saying of how to test a potentital husband--watch him untangle a string of Christmas lights, discipline a puppy, and balance a check book could be amended to read:  watch to see how he handles the stress of travel.  (This test would apply to the female, also)

So the upcoming trip will be a revelation in some ways, of how I (and my hubby) handle the stresses of travel, and how much my comfort zone has been made smaller, narrower, and less flexible with age.  It's one thing to lose your way when you are eighteen and feel pretty darn good and very invulnerable--use a rock for a pillow?  No problem!  It's another thing entirely when you are in your 60's and the body doesn't take well to loss of sleep, digestive upsets and the like. I'm not looking forward to this thrust outside the comfort zone! 

But will it be "good for me"?  I guess it all depends on my attitude.  Life being 90% how you take it...if that's true then keeping an optomistic attitude, expecting good surprises to outnumber the bad, and dealing with people and situations with an open heart is the best insurance that the experience as a whole will be positive, valuable, insightful, and fun.  I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and hope that I'm right. 

Thoughts on the nature of the BLOG

Yesterday, when I contemplated doing a travel blog, mostly to keep my friends up to date on my travel experiences, I was telling myself it was much like keeping a diary that I just typed on my ipad.  After thinking about it more, and posting my very first one, I've reconsidered the nature of the blog.  Diaries are private, blogs are public. I noticed that I was being much more careful with language, punctuation, etc than if I were just scribbling away in a notebook.  Good? Bad?  Dunno, but certainly different in feeling, tone, perhaps subject matter.  Anyone could read my blog--someone I didn't know.  What might they think of me?  What impression do I want to leave to posterity OUT THERE in cyberspace?  And should I care?

The whole issue has caused me to think more about the various public personas we all use when dealing with the outside world.  You have one face at work, one with your friends, one with acquaintances.  Which is the real you?  Does your best friend, husband, or child know the 'real' you"?"  How private a person is in their heart-of-hearts.  It all goes back to what makes being an authentic person.  I may be nice to the lady at the check-out even when I'm in a bad mood--I may smile and say have a nice day even while I'm thinking that she was slow as molasses and needs to lose about 50 pounds.  This is being polite in society to keep the wheels turning.  I may tell my husband that his latest effort at sweeping the porch is fine and dandy, even while I plan to come back afterwards and do a little extra.  This is keeping the lumps in the relationship smoothed out.  We all do it on a daily basis to some degree or another.  Does this invalidate who we are?  Does it make us out as a liar or prevaricator?  Who wants or needs to see my 'authentic self' and in what context?  It seems more important that I know inside who I am, that I act from that interior place when it really matters ethically, and that I share my authentic self as much as is realistic at any given moment.  My emotional self, my mental self, my spiritual self, and my physical self all have a certain validity, a certain persona, and they are all components of the entire package of me, but they aren't me. 

When I'm dead and gone I want people to think well of me and my life, but whether or not they really knew me, or knew any of my myriad personas means nothing.  My personality and the face I wear, the color of my skin, the beliefs I hold, the relationships I've forged in this lifetime are gone the minute I'm gone.  They exist only as representative of the personality self, not my true spiritual self. To me, the concept of an authentic self--that well-bandied about Dr. Phil psychobabble term is more about the Capital P me - and only my soul knows that self because even my Small P self doesn't fully know that self.  Just my little take on it, anyway.  Let's close with a Dr. Phil quote:
"Be your authentic self. Your authentic self is who you are when you have no fear of judgment, or before the world starts pushing you around and telling you who you're supposed to be. Your fictional self is who you are when you have a social mask on to please everyone else. Give yourself permission to be your authentic self."
~ Dr. Phil

The Hard Part

They say that getting there is half the fun.   I don't know if that's true, but I do think that getting there is hard work, no matter where the destination lies--internal or external, this world or the next.  In this particular context, I'm thinking and writing about the elaborate, intricate, detailed planning that has gone toward my upcoming trip to England and the Cotswolds.  The internet has been both a godsend and a source of frustration.  TMI!  Sites, information overload, and keeping track of it all requires organization, printing out much more paper than one might think, and always, always the coordination, cooperation, and agreement from spouse before anything gets finalized.  But we are almost there.  B&Bs have been booked, train/bus schedules printed out, car rental agreements perused, pubs bookmarked.  Five years ago I wouldn't have known how to do all the searching around on the internet, but old dogs can learn new tricks and now I'm a pro at searching.  Hopefully, proper prior planning....etc, etc. 

The ability to plan ahead is one thing, and both my husband and I are aware that in the case of overseas travel and moving to new accommodations every night, it's absolutely necessary.  But in my fantasy of going to England and puttering around, I always imagined the road opening up ahead of me, adventure unfolding like petals of a flower, and serendipity sprinking down like golden rain.  I've found that sometimes planning too much leads to expectations that are never quite met, plans going awry, and timetables falling by the wayside to leave the travelers weary, frustrated, and disappointed.  On the other hand I've experienced the reverse--no plans leading to spinning wheels, missed connections and missed events ("If you'd just been here yesterday...last week...an hour ago...").  So what's a body to do?  Hopefully, this trip will be a combination of planning for beds to sleep in, checking to see that the manor house is indeed open on a Tuesday for example, and then leaving the rest to chance and adventure. We'll see and my daily posts from the road will tell the true story.

I wonder if life in general follows the same rules:  some plans--some open-endedness.  You can't plan too much because life is messy and intervenes at the most unexpected places.  Murphy's Law incorporated.  But no plans make for downward spirals into entropy, depression, and doubts.  At least for me.  As my over-organization and tendency to worry leads to micromanagement, I need to loosen up most of the time.  Strike a balance, go for the middle way.  Let chance swoop in and take me places I never expected or planned.  This tendency to organize gets more entrenched as you age, so keeping open is very much on my list of Things-To-Do-To-Avoid-Becoming-Concrete.  Learn new stuff (blogging, for example), follow the trends, accept new ideas, music, technologies. 

At any rate, the upcoming trip (exactly one month from today) will be a test for going with the flow, allowing for wiggle-room, and enjoying the process of travel, with all its unknowns and unforeseen happenings.