The travel spatula - we all must learn

Some years ago, my younger sister was thinking about her retirement and that she might want to go live abroad for awhile. This was a significant departure from her then current life. So as to be sure this was for her, she was thinking about spending a month overseas two summer’s hence, just to see how it suited her. maybe Spain. I wanted to show her my big brotherly support for her upcoming travels, so I suggested she and I do some hosteling in the States in order that she would have a feel for how they worked and give her confidence as to that mode of travel. We ended up in Nantucket at their hostel eventually.

But this isn’t about that really, it’s about one of the Christmas gifts I gave her that year. A spatula. I styled it a “travel spatula” which she could use when she stopped at hostels in her travels. It was, after all, very lightweight.

So this isn't about my sister at all, who went on to travel, without ever needing my spatula. (To be a little fair to me, the picture of a spatula on the cover here is not the one I gave her, what I gave her is still packed away somewhere in storage. The one on the cover is one she likes to kid me with.) Instead, this post is about my own limitations and growth over time. We all have to learn. And painful as it is to acknowledge, we never have this travel business all worked out. In fact, learning is at the very essence of why we do travel. 

So as I start to write in this blog, I think it is important to put out there this little story. I don’t know everything. And if somedays I act like what you really need is a travel spatula, then please don’t let me get away with it.