Brey Willows

Card 58, Writing Down the Bones: Where have you traveled?

Every time I travel, I’m reminded of one thing: I’ve come a long, long way from where I began.

Where I began was among the poorest of the poor. Mom says we actually started to do better once we got into the projects. Things were tight. Money was stretched paper thin. We often went without.

Last summer, I was in Rhodes with my wife and two close friends. We wandered ancient cities, old beaches, and drank incredible coffee. (Always a good indicator of a great vacation.)

Me. On a Greek island.

And that’s been the case every time we’ve gone somewhere. I look around in wonder, feeling indescribably lucky. I take it all in, breathe it into my soul and I don’t take a single second for granted. I’m lucky my wife (and friends) like to experience wherever we are in the same way. Wandering off the tourist trails and into the real part of the country is one of the most amazing things we get to do. I adore travel and miss it when we don’t get to go somewhere.

And what a difference from where I began.

So far, I’ve been to: Greece (Mainland and Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete), Iceland, Spain, Italy (mainland and Venice/islands), France, Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and Thailand (perhaps the most magical of all them). There are so many more places we want to go, though of course LGBTQ laws/rights make much of the world inhospitable for us.