Is it now, or was it then?

Exploring = the research and travel required for discovery.

It was a long ride back in the back of the station wagon. He laid there wrapped in a smelly blanket driving through Tennessee north after a vacation to Florida. Still young, and with a big ego, he wondered if his tan would last until he returned and appeared at school. But mostly, as he lay in the dark looking up at the street signs whizzing by and the slosh of the rain under the tires, he wondered if the beach was still full of people, enjoying their first or last day?

This has always puzzled him and plagued him. During the first few days upon returning from traveling, his mind wanders back to places he has left. In fact, he has only really left in time and space, as his spirit is still clinging to the new and exotic, with resistance to the return to normalcy.

He has of course read that this state of mind is normal, but also childish. Everyone knows that vacations are only intended to be a brief respite from our real lives, one of work and duty. After all, why don’t we jump up and down on our own bed each night? This excitement needs to be limited to just a small percentage of our lives so that we can really appreciate it. Really?

So here he sits wondering if the waterfall is still flowing, and are the brookies’ still idling in the shady still waters under the canopy of trees. Are those ungodly mosquitoes biting each other with curiosity as to where he and the little pup have gone? Is that moon still on the rise over that never ending blanket of spruce?

It all must be of course. Or is our experience really the only reality that matters? This line of thinking does not bode well for the preservation of things yet unseen. But perhaps what we see in our minds eye is really it. And travel simply gives us the imagery our minds so require.

He still wonders.