The disappearing moment effect

Ever want to share an experience with the world, try to write and photograph and document it?  And you try and try to get other people to see the amazing things you've seen, the places you've been and realize you can't, and maybe that's why you cherish those moments so very much?

 Because at one point, you were standing on a street corner in Vietnam, and you were in love with everything, and that one moment belongs to you alone. You want other people to see it, to understand the beauty in an alien city with trees bursting from the pavement, tangling with power wires; where everything smells different  and the people are all the same and all different from you but when they smile at you its the same as ever.

You took a picture of that street. You show it to your friends and family, but ultimately that is your moment. You were there smelling those smells, eating ice cream and the weirdest looking fruit you could have never imagined, and that moment rides along with you like a personal, pleasant ghost.

People ask my why I went to Vietnam, of all places, and I didn't know. But I know why I'm going back someday -- I need more moments.

Roving heart, wandering wits

The first thing you need to know about me, part of the reasoning behind the title "Wandering Wits" is because it's a fancy, alliterative way to say I have a meandering mind. Now part of that is fairly standard ADD, a need to jump between thoughts and ideas and projects to stay sane. A larger, more poetic part is my near-constant need to be somewhere, typically called wanderlust.

I had the wonderful opportunity to travel in high school, with a band program that stayed with host families, and spent three weeks traveling France, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. Then in college went to Italy for a week as a spring break program and earned three credits traipsing around Rome and Florence. Then I earned six credits in six weeks in Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. And then my best friend lived in Korea for a spell, and I had to visit.

I will undoubtedly talk about all these experiences at length. Not to brag, but to help you understand my addiction. My addiction to being somewhere else. I have been in this country for a year, which means I'm getting the itch, the symptom. I love my home, but the side effect of having fairly consecutive out-of-country experiences is a craving to be elsewhere. To be surrounded by new. If you share my addiction, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you don't, I will do my best to educate as I share my experiences.r

Tabula Rasa

I'm not much one for resolutions. I tend to make them and ignore them, or put off making them until March, or make them randomly throughout the year. I treat them very irreverently. So this blog isn't a resolution. I believe in new things, blank slates rather then promises I don't hold in much esteem anyway. This, this is a new thing for a New Year.

I've tried blogging before and it never seemed to work. Or it worked for a while, but  never stuck. I tried dabbling in design, I tried schedules and planning. But I never had a reason to blog, things I wanted to blog about. I had a blog because I had a writing degree and no idea what to do with it. I still can't say I do. But I've ruminated. Thought about it, turned ideas around, ruminated.

I had everything backwards. I was writing because I had a writing degree, not because I liked writing. So I had a blog because I had a degree, not because I had a passion.

And I think if anything will work, it's a blank slate. I need to write. Not because I'm supposed to, but because I want to. And use my deep, abiding love of the internet to do so.

So progress may be slow. This may not start with a bang. I'm going to let it happen how it happens, and let things happen because I want them to. Welcome to the journey.