The thought has often crossed my mind that many of the most interesting adventures… or misadventures, to be more accurate… I had as a journalist happened before anyone actually paid me for the privelege. There’s a story to be told about the time I almost dislocated Bill Clinton’s shoulder – or at least that’s what he says… I dispute that – or the time I was almost killed twice in the same day covering flooding in rural Missouri, but I think those are stories for another day. All I can really say with any authority is that a grain elevator is not a good place to be when a levee breaks, and Bill Clinton has remarkably flabby upper arms. Or at least he did in July of 1992.
What I can also say is that even after twelve years in news, I remember those beginning days with much more clarity than the final days. This is true of any job, of course. Work is always more interesting and more memorable when it’s new, and when every success… and every mistake… is the first one of its kind. Those new experiences are pivot points in one’s life.
The hard part, of course, is handling the transition from “I can’t believe I get paid to do this” to “I can’t believe I have to do this.” For the very fortunate few, it’s a soft landing, and there are still enough high tides to cushion the low ebbs. Television news, for me, was a career almost tailor made to smooth out and often delay for years, that transition. What I’ve previously described as an immunity to the “grass is greener” mentality also has the ability to, in regular intervals, renew one’s spirit. I think the inevitable result of changing your job, your home city, and even your circle of community every two to three years is that at least something is new and fresh again. Did I say my best days in news were the first ones? That’s true, but I can still tell you about the first stories I covered in every market I lived in over the course of almost twelve years.
What I mean to say is that there were many more times when I felt that I was experiencing what Winston Churchill would have referred to as the end of the beginning, rather than the beginning of the end. That feeling that everything up to that point was merely prologue to the perhaps exciting but certainly challenging work yet to come. I feel my challenge over the past several weeks has been to turn the prospect of losing my sight into a fresh start. This strange muddle of a middle ground – not quite blind, but not quite sighted – is a strange place to plant one’s flag, and I could be standing here for quite a while. The idea that I could lose what remains of my sight today, tomorrow, next week… or never. It’s exhausting, but there’s a strange side effect to it as well. There’s a feeling that it’s also prologue to… something. I don’t think anyone would call it exciting, but challenging? Absolutely.
That’s why the idea that the past several weeks have been more about reaching the end of he beginning rather than the beginning of the end have been so appealing. If I’m not entirely certain of the future yet, I’m achieving a comfort level with that uncertainty. The beginning of the end? I choose not to see it that way. The end of the beginning? I think this is more hopeful, and more importantly, more useful.
I’ve written about tools, and while those tools still do feel more than a bit clunky in my hands, at least I know what they are. I’ve written about colors, and I’m pretty thankful that they are, to date, still a part of my life. Finally, I’ve written about using those tools to experience the world through those colors, and of figuring out how to do that. I think I can see a pathway for that now.
With that in mind, I think it’s time to say it does in fact feel like I’ve reached the end of the beginning. The point where I’m comfortable saying no matter how much sight I lose, I can still explore the world on a meaningful level. This is the level that is more than being strapped onto someone else’s adventure. Not being dragged to the top of a mountain or packed like luggage into someone’s car. What I’m trying to say… although not with as much success as I’d like (sorry about that) is that if I’ve learned anything these past few months, it’s that the barrier to my exploring the world is not going to be my physical eyesight, but only the lack of vision, in the metaphorical sense, that keeps even those with perfect eyesight rooted in one place.
So, to that end… the travelogue.
Red
Uluru is the heart of Australia’s Red Centre, and I love the idea of this monolith standing in the middle of so much empty space. While it’s possible to fly to Alice Springs and drive the final several hundred miles, I have a better idea. They say you haven’t seen America until you’ve seen it from a train. I think this sentiment works for Australia too.
Blue
I’ll never forget the first time I saw the Pacific Ocean. I was struck by the enormity of it, and of thinking that, for now, this was as far as I could go in my travels west. The only decision now is which edge of the Pacific Rim I want to use as a jumping off point. Oh, and how to sail would be a nice value add…
Yellow
C’mon. The real Tatooine. Who wouldn’t want to take a look?
Green
I have not a single drop of Irish in me, but this place – the fields and woods near Killarney – it’s been calling to me for a long time. There’s an interesting inn-to-inn hike I’ve been eyeing, and I think there’s much to do to make it happen.
Orange
My adopted hometown of San Francisco. Up close and personal, there are still so many avenues to explore for this journey, and with my team, that make it fresh.
Purple
Oh, all right, this one is a bit on the metaphorical side when it comes to colors, but those purple mountains majesty became a part of me many years ago, and there are some climbs I want to revisit with these new challenges.
Brown
Those waters of the Ganges have to be more than the meditation minded version of a tourist trap. I want to see for myself, and my mind is open.
Black
I’m keeping this one in my back pocket, because I have an idea here. What I want to say about this harkens back to that beginning of the end idea. The idea that the end isn’t really the end. That even in blindness, there is a world of color. Unconventional color, to be sure, but it’s there. I don’t want to talk about black just yet, but it holds true to my idea that I’m more in favor of the end of the beginning, rather than the beginning of the end.
So really, everything from this point will be about making the travelogue something more than an idea that sits on a server, somewhere in the cloud. At its heart, words are… they’re just words. They can be anything you want them to be, and they can certainly be fiction. If this is the driving force of my life, then anything I’m writing has to be backed up by something more substantial. If I’m doing it right, everything from here will at least have a grain of accomplishment to it. Something that means more than the end of the beginning.
So.. in the words of that ever present library of selections in the travel section of the Barnes and Noble… Let’s Go!
