Lost Awe

(Song: "Everyday is Exactly the Same," By Nine Inch Nails.)

I am getting prodded by more than one person lately about how little I blog lately.

It is an unfortunate aspect of the ever broadening world that the more you see, the more it becomes common place, the less awe it inspires.

I once said to someone, "If I have children, I don't want them to leave the country before they are 18 years old." This was met with European superiority, how stupid I was to entrench the American ways in my children.

That has nothing at all to do with it.

If you are never exposed to the amazing and vast amount of differences, when you finally are, the wonder and awe of every little aspect is intoxicating. But you don't notice the differences unless you are aware of them. I don't want my kids to be accustomed to differences prior to their ability to find wonder in them. I left the US first to go to Canada, which was hardly a change. Then I went to Scotland at age 19.

It was overpowering. Everything, different light switches, cobble streets, street numbering, how to open windows, ordering a pizza (I like margaritas which is a cheese pizza), it is all different. And had I been exposed to all this when I was young, I would never have realized or noticed how amazing the differences are, or thought about why they exist.

I think this has affected my blogging.

As port after port after lame Caribbean port goes by, I am no longer struck or fascinated by the tin drum band on the dock. It is the Caribbean, of course there is a tin drum band on the pier. It no longer strikes me that I can us US dollars in just about every country I stop in. The sun and the sea so blue it refreshes your soul, it is all taken for granted.

The fact that my phone calls have a three second delay, like it is 1940, does not even enter my thoughts while talking.

I went to a pilates class. Pilates are a lot about strengthening core muscles through balancing exercises.

Well the seas were not exactly even, so we got an enhanced pilates workout. You try balancing on your left hip and the ship is rolling a bit. You get all the muscles you are intending to stretch, and a few more thrown in as part of the deal. It didn't really occur to me to mention this in my blog before now, because I accept the rolling of the ship as a normal part of life, not worth mentioning. (I should really start a list of normal things that are not so easy/ more difficult on a rolling ship: shaving, running, pilates, carrying a cup of coffee, keeping you chair (which for some reason is on wheels) close to you desk, walking a straight line, holding down your breakfast, standing in stilettos, grabbing the soap off the shower floor, walking through doorways without hitting either side, finding things you swore you left on your desk, but may have rolled somewhere, like pens and screw drivers.)

Then there is always that morning every now and then when you walk into your office, and everything that was on your shelves is now on your desk and everything on your desk is on the floor, all the drawers are open and your chair is knocked over.

No, this was not someone ransacking the office for the diamonds you keep in the second software book from the right, for future reference, it was just a rough night (which does not mean a night out drinking) and you forgot to prepare for it.

Wishing you a day full of awe, wonder and new experiences

And not exactly the same