Crashingly Beautiful

I was inspired to start this blog by a comment from my brother-in-law. We had occasion to travel together in India last month, along with my husband and sister-in-law, and the experience brought us together in ways that real life never does. It also unleashed all kinds of memories for me, and I found myself recounting a lot of them.

After about a week of this, he said to me: “You have a lot of great travel stories. Have you ever thought about writing a book?”

In truth, it’s crossed my mind, but never seriously. It’s not just that I’ve never believed I had the drive to take on such a monumental, soul-baring task, although that’s been a big factor. It’s also that I’ve always felt that at best I had snippets, anecdotes, but not a cohesive narrative that could fill a book. 

And yet… his question resonated with me. I think because it felt good, after twenty years of off-and-on travels, to relive some of my experiences, which at forty are becoming harder to recall. It’s also because it was gratifying that someone found them interesting. 

And that got me thinking. A book still feels like way too much to bite off. But I suddenly saw that a blog would be much more forgiving. It wouldn’t matter if my stories were fractured, or didn’t fill a whole page, or weren’t presented in chronological order. I could just write whatever popped into my head on a given day, without having to commit to an overly torturous creative process. 

So this blog is an experiment. It’s a way to get my observations, stories and musings down in writing (and photographs), so that I don’t forget them and, hopefully, so that others will enjoy them too. When I go on new adventures, I’ll post them here. And, I’m hopeful that having an outlet will motivate me to see everyday life in a different light — even when I’m not on the road.

–Incorrigible Traveler.

Please give a warm welcome to my sister-in-law. She’s  a great writer, and she has a lot of wonderful travel stories to tell you.