My obsession with travel and dirt

ACEO, Bahamas

Yes, you read it right.  I used to have an obsession with dirt.  It isn’t as odd as it sounds…so let me explain.

When I was little I wanted to travel.  Anywhere that was at least a state away from my own was where I longed to be.  I sent away to pretty much all fifty Chambers of Commerce and in return I received colorful travel brochures.  I put them in a box and stashed it under my bed. Occasionally I would take them out and scan the pages making a mental list of those places that I just had to see.

My parents had other ideas, and four kids who sometimes made travel to anywhere further than the corner grocery store rather difficult.  They tried, though.  Once a year or so they would pile us kids in the back seat of the family station wagon.  They’d listen to us quibble and fight over who touched whom, and which one of us got the window seat.  Occasionally my dad would threaten to stop the car.  He never did.

Eventually without the aid of a DVD player, video games or cell phones we managed to reach our destination, which were sometimes several states away.  That is when I started collecting dirt. 

Whenever we would cross a state line, I made dad stop the car and I would fill up an empty pill bottle with dirt.  My intention was to create a map of the United States and in each state section add it’s actual dirt, thereby creating a genuine topographical map. 

As I grew older I amassed quite a collection (in my eyes anyway) of perhaps 15 states, but I was far from completing my goal.  I grew up and life, as it sometimes has a tendency to do, got in the way.  Marriage, family and kids became the biggest priority.

Sadly, I gave up collecting dirt and I just tossed the empty pill and aspirin bottles into the trash instead of my room.

Today, innocently smuggling dirt from various states, is generally frowned upon when traveling by air. Times are different now.  Can you imagine trying to take a pill bottle full of dirt through TSA?  I can see me trying to explain that right now:

“But its just dirt.” I innocently explain.

“Follow me maam.”  He answers.

So to conclude, although I have visited many, many states…and countries since that long ago little girl dreamed of travel and collecting dirt, I now just keep the dirt in my mental map.  Once in a while, when no one is looking, I visit the storage area of my basement and take out those old, battered, bottles, open the caps, and remember.