Places I Wish I Were

On my Tumblr, I have a tag: #places i wish i were.  I use it on photos of places I have been, places I want to go, these impossibly wonderful, breath-stealingly gorgeous places that roll through my dashboard periodically.  Oh God, how I wish I could reach out my hand, make a gesture graceful and arcane, and melt into the reality they represent.

Tonight it was Rome at dawn or dusk, a city that even in the harsh light of day can make that sweet, sharp pain well up under your heart, make you want to spin in little circles to take it all in, make you laugh because you know that if you lived there your whole life you would never, ever be able to....but it would be so fun to try....  Fun to delve into the depths of that history overlapping like the pages of a living book, waiting simply with near-eternal patience for all who are interested to uncover it layer by layer.

So often it's London and I reblog every image that comes through, every cliched St. Stephen's Tower, every angle of the Eye I'm given, and I think of beautiful, red-headed, Kerry-on-his-tongue I. every time I do.  My mind is back with him as we float through the sky in that tame soap bubble, watching all of London unfold in front of us...  London fascinates me.  Too many authors I love and teach have spun through it, lived in it, died in it.  It is the great sun in my universe, its awesome gravity spinning all the little satellites in their orbits or causing them to expend energy to create escape velocity.

And then there are the fragments of the me who used to be that come sailing along like ginkgo leaves drifting, snapshots of Japan, every one heartbreaking in its loveliness.  There is no such thing as a bad picture of Japan.  You can take your camera and point it randomly and come away with something of wonder.  And when she is really trying, when she garbs herself deliberately and with care, turns her eyes upon you with intent to charm, there is not another place in the world that can stand up to her.  Newness of cherry blossoms or red and gold autumn leaves against centuries-old tile, gardens whose carefully-sculpted emptiness invites you to walk in and lay down the tangle you carry in your mind, these commonly photographed things in Japan are only the tiniest corner of her graces.

Then there are the places I haven't been that I want to see.... India and Brazil leading the group, Germany and China coming hard on their heels, so many places in the world so lovely and enchanting, all the world full of beauty and knowledge.  There are pictures from places my friends have been recently that further whet my appetites, and I dream....

Oh, somebody, take me away from here.  Just for a little while.  Let's run away, not tell anybody, just take a passport and a camera, a change of clothes or two and get the hell out and roam until home feels exotic again, until the pictures I'm wanting to put up online are pictures of here instead.