Traveling Dreams

I have been up in the cool North slaving for my sister. I say slaving with tongue in cheek. Actually it was a labor of love.

Juliana and her cheeky outlaw husband often have the opportunity to go on magnificent trips to far off climes. I suppose I have no real right to be jealous of that, but I am. I have so many places I'd love to go, Ireland being on the top of my list.

I want to see and experience everything before the tyrants of this world glop everything together in one gray, homogenized lump, like what happens to Play Dough when you mix the colors together. I'm afraid that those things which make each region unique will be bludgeoned out of them by people who have no idea what they are breaking.

I want to see their native costumes. I want to eat their food and watch (and possibly dance) their dances. I want to hear their music played and sung by the people who love what they're doing. I want to experience their history and learn their stories told by them, not by lying propagandists. I want to hear them speak in their own languages and try my best to understand them.

But it's all rapidly vanishing into the uncertain past. Everyone learns English now. Everyone is getting McDonalds and wearing the same clothing. As more countries fall to the ax of depleted economics, they cave in to the demands of their 'benefactors' and join the goopy homogenization.

Sigh.

I want to see it before it's gone. I want to keep everything alive in my head when it's all been sucked away down a dank crevasse. As in the book Fahrenheit 451, I want to remember.

But other than that, it was a fun (and cool) couple of two week trips!