Traveling is Happiness

I'm not sure why traveling makes me so happy. Maybe it's the change in routine or seeing things I haven't seen before...but when we rode the ferry today, well, I'd done that before. But I'd never done it in June, on the second floor deck, in a skirt, with my new camera, with Alicia, or at a time when I don't feel like I'm coming apart inside. Manhattan rose up on shore, just like it did last year, but the clouds--the real, literal clouds that shrouded the island with winter rain--were gone and it was all sun and perfect sky.

There are a ton of people here, pushing through the streets, on their way to places that maybe I'll see. Maybe I won't. It's tricky--knowing what you'll see. I wish I could see everything, but then I'd miss so much. Some things take exploration. People are a perfect example of this. I could meet every person in the world and it wouldn't mean much because life is finite and there's only so much time you have to get to know people. I'd rather have fewer relationships that are more intimate and supplement that with talking to random people. Ships that pass or what have you. Today I talked to a handler for a dog who is trained to sniff explosives. We talked about the dog's days off and then the officer near the first joked that he, unlike the dog, didn't live with the handler.

Something I love when I travel is the down time. Alicia is reading Time Out New York next to me in the common room--we just ate sugar snap peas she bought at the Staten Island Ferry. Another girl is in here, too; we talked about good parents, bad parents, and what really matters when you're raising children. Later Malinda, Alicia and I will go out to our favorite Mexican joint for truly tasty food, margaritas, and conversation (about life and houses and traveling and jobs but mostly about boys, I expect.) I'm looking forward to it.