Travelutions (aka Travel Resolutions) for 2023

 

El Paso-Juárez Bus mural outside the El Paso History Museum, El Paso, Texas. November 2016. Photo credit: Mzuriana.

It's been a minute since I wrote up a travel resolutions post. 

For 2023, here's what other folks intend to aspire to will do: 

**crickets**

Yeah, I drew a blank, not for the wont of lists that exist, but for the wont of finding any lists that inspired me, amused me, or surprised me. Not because I'm so worldly, and certainly not that I'm world-weary. No, it's because the dozens of lists I viewed offered the bullets of low-hanging fruit that we've all seen before, like: go somewhere new, try solo travel, stayvacate, etc. Or it's because the target audience has far more money and disposable time than most of us do.

I'm gonna divide my own list into two parts: 

1. Destination possibilities
2. Travel practices or activities
   

My list of potential travel destinations for 2023

• Trips to Vietnam, Romania, and Senegal (or thereabouts). Why these three? I have current or past students in the first two destinations, and because I've got a hankering to do that motor scooter thing that Phil in the Blank and a partner started up a few years back. Have I ever been on a motor scooter? Well, no. Maybe I'll take lessons somewhere first. That's on my list, too.
  
• A one-to-three month stay in Toronto, renting a friend's apartment in the city while she travels elsewhere. The only challenge is that in her perfect world, we'd do this during the winter, which she would like to escape. In my perfect world, fuck no, it's too cold! So we'll see how that all works out. 
• A visit somewhere with my youngest descendant, Jet
  
• A one-week visit to another Big City with my descendant, Tab (current contenders: Chicago, Las Vegas, Toronto), as a follow-on to a trip we took to NYC in September 2022
  
• A few weeks in Houston, with a gluttonous consumption of zydeco music and dance
  
• Several consecutive months of camping
• I'd still like to do another road trip to Alaska (which I did with daughter Kit a long time ago), but that might be better for 2024, when Jet has a driver's license.
  

My 2023 list of travel practices or activities

1. For the past decade, my rootlessness followed a model of one-year temporary residencies in different locations. With 2023, I am thinking to change this to quarterly moves, and even monthly moves, depending on the seasons and destinations. My tentative plan all along has been to settle in to a permanent home base in mid-2025, so accelerating my movement pattern for these next two and a half years feels attractive. 
2. Embark on and complete a list of creative projects that incorporate writing, family letters, and photographs. This practice relates to travel in that I will need to consciously choose locations and spaces that are conducive to peaceful blocks of time to invest in these projects. 
   
3. OK, so here's a practice that didn't hit my rootless radar until very recently: Establish medical relationships in convenient locations for effective continuity of care, record keeping, and oversight for:

• Routine screenings
• Management of noncritical conditions that require some oversight, or just those things that one needs to keep an eye on because of potential development into something that requires intervention
  
• In the event something serious develops, there's already a relationship with a health care provider I trust and who knows me
  

Past travelutions posts

• Travel Resolutions for 2021
  
• Travel Resolutions for 2020
• Travel Resolutions for 2015
  
• Travel Resolutions for 2014
• Travel Resolutions for 2013

Las Cruces, New Mexico: Christmas Day

 

A Christmas Day fire in the fireplace via youtube. December 2022.

In the early morning, while my brewing coffee dripped into the carafe, I opened the blinds in the kitchen to welcome the daylight and to access the view of the desert ridge next to the house. I thought of my mother, who opened her wooden window shutters every morning to summon the day into her house. From her, perhaps, I learned that, to the extent we are able, we create the environment we wish to have around us. 

I connected with long-distance family and friends, exchanging Christmas greetings, via phone calls, texts, or emails.

I went on a walk. Like that of some birds and mammals, my attention got caught by brightly colored or shiny things, both natural and human-made. 

Christmas Day walk in Las Cruces neighborhood. Colorful string. December 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

  

Christmas Day walk in Las Cruces neighborhood. Colorful misshapen thing. December 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Christmas Day walk in Las Cruces neighborhood. Bright purple thing. December 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

And I even saw an addition to the carcass collection. A bird pellet.

Bird pellet on Christmas Day walk. December 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Here is a slide show that includes this and other walks in my occasional Las Cruces neighborhood. 

I felt cozy and soothed by way of a Youtube crackling fire in a hearth on my host's big screen TV. 

 

I listened to Handel's Messiah, with its soaring, endorphin-producing sounds of blended voices and instruments. Doing this is, in part, a memorial to my father, a complicated man, who liked to listen to Messiah at Christmas. 

 

In the evening, I opened a mini-box of cabernet. 

A good Christmas. 

Some Christmases past

2021: Mobile, Alabama

2016: El Paso, Texas 

2013: Lafayette, Louisiana 

2013: Rootless: On Doing Holidays Solo

2012: Santa Fe, New Mexico

 

10 Years Ago: Where I Will Not Be Living Next Year

I have successfully continued to not live there in the past 10 years, and I will continue to not live there in the future. Same reason. 

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Where I Will Not Be Living Next Year

Cultural Center, Gallup, New Mexico

Not long ago, I had the thought that if I were to spend a second year in New Mexico, I might spend it on the western side of New Mexico, such as in Grants, Gallup, or Farmington.

Now that I've visited Grants and Gallup in December, I know that while both have a number of qualities to commend them, I'll not be living in either place (or Farmington). 

Too bloody cold.