“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are
the destination, and the journey. They are home.”
― Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life
Childhood Dreams
There’s that one phrase in the English language that every
adult loves to ask, and every teenager learns to dread: “And what do YOU want
to be when you GROW UP?”
At three, my answer would have been: “A dog!” As I
disappeared under the table and hid behind my parents’ legs, giving a few
growls if anyone challenged my answer. At that age, that can still be
considered cute by some.
At five, I would have said: “A fireman!” And was outraged
when someone pointed out that I couldn’t ever follow that dream, because I was
just a GIRL!
Then came my formative years with all its angst and pain,
but by then I had my answer down pat: “I want to travel!” Even in the face of
my parents’ despair at my total lack of ambition and unrealised “potential”, I
never had any doubt that there was a hidden recessive globetrotting gene inside
me that had obviously skipped several generations of stay-in-your-own-village
type people, but which now needed attention. “But there is no money in that!”
people would say, usually accompanied by a frustrated eye-roll and a pitying
glance at my parents, because in the last two years leading up to high-school
graduation, totally unrealistic answers are no longer considered cute. “Money?”
I would ask, with a vacant stare, because this reality had never occurred to
me. Why would I need money? I would travel on donkeys over mountain passes,
sleep on the ground surrounded by members of yet undiscovered Amazonian tribes,
forage grasses and seeds and wild grubs out of hollow trees and give a big fat
middle finger to Western society and its materialistic culture.
I think your childhood ends the day that you finally come up
against those very barriers of money and responsibilities and find that you
lack the courage to trade in your life as you know it for a donkey ride over
some wild Andes mountain. Suddenly that fire in your belly gives way to a
resigned sigh: “Ah well, that’s life,” as your childhood dreams go up in a big
fat puff of black smoke.
The Reality
I have travelled, even though nowhere near as much as I
would have liked. But you are looking at the girl who, at the age of twenty, moved
to the opposite side of the world, only taking the few possessions that fitted
into a small backpack, and started a completely new life away from everything
she had previously known. Who, in previous centuries, would have been the
“black sheep”, like the distant uncle in America who had broken family
convention and whose name was only spoken in furtive whispers at family
gatherings. Compared to the adventures I had in mind as a child with an
overactive imagination, mine have been relatively sedate, but they were
adventures nonetheless and make for a few good stories around the campfire.
Armchair Travel
To cut a long story short, this is where books come in for
me. I may have to leave my physical body behind when travelling to faraway
exotic places, but I still do so with the help of BOOKS! There is nothing
better than a bit of armchair travel whilst your body is comfortably wrapped in
a warm doona and the kettle is on. I love the dazed and somewhat confused
feeling when I emerge from one of my armchair travel adventures, totally
disorientated, still ensconced in a world so alien from my own reality. That’s
the true magic of books, that Aladdin’s carpet quality that can create a portal
into another world just by opening a book and turning the first page.
So far this year, I have armchair-travelled to 20 different
countries. Since the list of ARCs I have read have controlled most of what I
have read, I have been a bit like a loose leaf in the wind, letting them carry
me wherever they wanted to, with no itinerary and no plan.
But there are a few locations on my radar I would love to
visit in the second half of 2017: Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, Russia, China and
Japan are foremost on my list. With the help of the wonderful members of the Crime
Book Club on FB I have found the website TripFiction, where you can look up
books by location and leave reviews. Another site where I can spend hours
browsing whilst my husband yells from the other room: “What are you DOING on
that computer?”
My armchair travel map, complete with links to the books
which took me there, can be found here. I am hoping to add a lot of new markers
to the board in the second half of 2017!
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