Next year, I am seriously looking into studying in Ireland for a semester.  As I plan, and daydream about the wonderful opportunity this could be, I can’t help but find a pattern in my fantasies lately.  I frequently like to look up castles and English manors online.  I love to look at Indian clothing stores with all their bangles and sparkly fabrics.  I am fascinated by bizarre, exotic foods.  I feel adventure just looking at a map. 

       Is it obvious yet that there is some deep, nagging desire inside of me to be abroad?  I’ve known some people who wish to leave their hometown simply to get away from their families.  This is by no means my case.  After only a semester in college, I’ve been told more than once “no, Jasmine, you may not come home next weekend,” as my parents lovingly prod me from my nest.  Being so close to home makes it a temptation to stay, well, close to home.  But this ache for mountains, this craving for chickpeas, this longing for the hum of foreign tongues, can’t be explained by an aversion to where I’m at.  It can only be explained by a curiousity of where I have not yet been.

         Now that I have the desire, I have to recognize my personal obstacles.  I have three glaring hurtles: my ordinary essence, my short attention span, and my passive agression.

         If I am a bird leaving the nest, I think that I’m a Robin.  Pigeons remind me of soaring architecture.  Eagles inspire mountains.  Crows make me think of Poe, and gloomy moors.  Even sparrows remind me of either a tipsy pirate or questing knights.  But I am a robin, a bird that sits in my pine tree in America’s midwest.  It has a call that isn’t pleasant like the loon, or haunting, like the crows.  This is what I am.  It’s the bird I see the most, and it catches my attention the least.  I’m plain looking, and my experiences are the same.  I’m not even experiencing college away from my own native forest.  I have yet to do anything that adds a little bit of sparkle to my wings.  Maybe that’s why I’m feeling restless for travel: I want to migrate.  I have unused wings.  But hopefully the ordinary of my Robinness will be an empty canvas for the people, places, and histories that I hope to encounter.

           The second obstacle is my short attention span.  I am interested in anything and everything.  I want to know about every part of the world.  If I could have my wish I would know every language, be an expert in all mythologies, and connect with each people group on Earth.  Perhaps this is the writer in me, that balks at the idea of being contained in one subject or using the same set of words over and over again.  But while this makes the world around me a wonderfully distracting place that I can’t see enough of, it also tends to prevent me from becoming truly versed in any one thing.  I went into the library one day to check out of book of Native American lore, because my grandfather now does a lot of work with various reservations and he sparked my curiosity.  I came out of the library with books on Russian, English, Native American, and Irish lore.  I can’t know enough, and therefore I probably never will know much.  As Mr. Monk would say: it’s a blessing… and a curse.

            Finally, I am passive agressive.  I don’t always see the harm in this.  after all, passive aggression is still a form of aggression- isn’t it?  Well, maybe you can tell me about it sometime… if you want to.  But in all seriuosness, no matter how much I defend my round-about way of doing things, I can’t deny that it would hinder any adventure or exploring that I plan on doing.  I tend to be scared of initiating conversations, and I’m terrified of speaking to someone in a different language.  Something about fumbling over conjugations and incorrect verbs makes me blush for myself and for those I impose it on, but how else do you meet people?  So, if I am to be the writer, the traveler, and the person I want to be, I need to work on getting the moxy it takes to walk up to a person and say, “Je ne parle pas francais, mais, je ce parle.”  Then I can throw in what little I know about pantaloons and Versaille, and I’ve started a clumsy, possibly incorrect, giggly conversation, but a conversation none-the-less. 

         And maybe that’s the real adventure, daring to do what ordinarily makes me want to curl up and eat pretzels dipped in chocolate frosting while watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians.  My new adventures are going to be whatever scares me.  Whatever makes me feel so alone that I’m forced to turn to myself for counsel and deal witht he consequences.  Whatever forces me to migrate.