travel

I stood in front of the map after church, just looking at all the countries in their pastel colors. They look so uniform, flat there on the wall. There is nothing real about them.

And yet, I run my fingers over them, remembering. There are people there, in those little flat blocks of color, people living and dying. There are mountains and rainforests. There are cities and beaches.

A woman from the church came over to talk to me, and then introduced me to the Church Traveler, a retired dentist. He showed me interesting itineraries all over Asia and Latin America.

"You can do all the traveling you want," he said. "You are young and single, and it's cheap once you buy the ticket."

His wife came over to chat. "When he proposed, I said, 'But you've been to Europe already, and I want to go.'"

"And I said, 'Well, I can go again,'" the Church Traveler laughed.

"All of my parents' friends planned for five years for their retirement trips to Europe," his wife told me, "and then they talked about it for years afterward. I had no idea that you could just travel."

"Yes, we've had some adventures," the Church Traveler said, smiling at her.