Stay Golden

                                              WORLD NOMADS TRAVEL COMP ENTRY

      "There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner." GK Chesterton.

 We can roam to each and every corner of the globe and find many stark differences but essentially we are all the same. We are life, I am life. I bring it everywhere with me and to everything I do. It courses around my body and keeps me moving forward. I was created as a result of the desire that my parents shared to create life and as a result of life's longing for itself, perhaps. My earliest memories of them both is how hard they both worked in our pub in the Republic of Ireland. It was a place that teemed with life- I’d watch on from behind the counter, still too young to participate fully but always immersed. That place taught me some of life’s earliest and most important lessons- listen to people, be kind to them, be curious, travel far and wide and have as much fun as you possibly can. The years rolled on and life’s ups and downs came and went. I went to college, got a teaching degree and life felt mapped out. Life was safe. I had a loving boyfriend whom I thought I would marry, a pensionable job, a little car and I felt fiercely protected but there was a problem - I was unhappy. I wanted adventure! I had a lot to entice me to stay but I didn’t really want any of it at the time. It was too soon and I was too young. I wanted to be free. In one grand swoop I pulled the rug from under my feet and in what felt like the blinking of an eye I found myself on a one way flight to Sydney… and petrified. I will always remember the beautiful guy sitting beside me, on that my first flight into the unknown. He had just left the wilds of rural Galway (and the only life he'd ever known) to begin a solo adventure in New Zealand, one way ticket also. He looked as nervous as I felt. His strong, tanned arm touched mine as we shared an armrest. It was too close for comfort considering we were perfect strangers but we didn’t readjust. We both needed to feel it. I had to stop myself from lifting his arm and wrapping it around me just to feel that comfort again… We didn’t talk at length- no need.  When we stopped over in Singapore for our connecting flights we hugged for longer than strangers should. “Best of luck with everything, now”, he whispered and walked to his gate. I took a long deep breath in and took lead to mine. It was 2005 and I was alone now for the first time and living this unforgettable thing we call life.

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I have taken many more flights since that momentous one to Australia in 2005. I have worked and/or travelled to Asia, Africa and Central America. Each place is well remembered in my mind and now on the walls of my new little home as treasured framed photos. These places however have become so much more than just coloured pieces of squared paper thoughtfully placed in a hallway. They have become part of who I now am. I've had so much fun and could write many stories about the people I've encountered: Solomon Maverick the guy who brought me back to life (romantically!)in Thailand, Nepalese families making me rice wine up the Himalayas during a knee trembling storm, Big Jim, the hallucinogenic cane toads and the crazy Russian in Costa Rica, Michael Jackson tribute act in the remote villages of Kenya's Rift Valley, losing every single last thing I owned in New Zealand and giving away every single thing I owned to a stranger in Cambodia, dancing and romancing in rooftop pools in Sydney. The fun journeys take you, the challenging ones make you. Holding a dying baby in Africa changes you forever. Of course, there are also moments that I will just keep to myself, in my own heart to help me remember what true strength really is, moments where I felt as close to whatever God, Buddha or other that may be out there in the firmament. Almost on some sort of neuro molecular level a little  piece of each place I've roamed to  has been added to the essence of me. The sounds, smells, colours, tastes and above all the people have created new links in my head that are easily plucked from the recesses of my consciousness by simply taking time to remember them. So what would it mean to me if I won this opportunity? It would add to my very existence and enrich my mind, body and spirit. And in turn using the best and most evocative words I can muster up I will  try my best to enrich the lives of those who read my tales.

Why should I be chosen you ask? I should be chosen because I have come to understand and live life in two ways. I live it once in the moment and again on paper. I will spend the rest of my days doing that regardless. But to be given the opportunity to help others understand life, by reading about how others live it, in different faraway places, around this globe, would be a memory for which there would be no frame big enough.