Watchable and Wearable Wealth
Reinforcing my remembering
The ability to travel and to experience the variety that our planet has to offer, that is my definition of wealth. Rather than surrounding myself with expensive cars, or jewellery, or a large house, I like to preserve my memories of our trips and travels.
Whenever we travel to new countries or places, there’s always a tendency to bring home a memento. In days gone by, these used to include bric-a-brac, like decorative plates from Greece, shot glasses from some Austrian skiing resort, and so on. Just like Anne Bonfert described in her story linked below, these items are now long-forgotten, or in storage somewhere.
These days, we only buy useful stuff. And since I love wearing T-shirts, I often look for one or two when visiting a new place. The two T-shirts pictured above date back to quite a few years ago, when we visited friends in Mombasa, Kenya. We spent a lovely time with them, on the beaches South of the city, and snorkeling in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Every time I see or wear one of these garments, I am transported back to that time. I can almost feel the warm white sand under my feet, or feel myself floating above colourful fish.
We have similar memories of white sand and warm clear waters from a couple of visits to Mexico. When I wear one of the shirts in the next picture, then I just want to float in that water again…
Not all holidays are to warm beaches, however. In 2017, we did a Canadian road trip between Calgary and Vancouver, and also to Bowen Island. It was summer (June) but still rather cool. Inspiration to buy a sweater in Vancouver:
Our most recent trip was to Hong Kong and to the Philippines. In the latter country, we spent a few days on Siargao Island. A lovely place, clearly a Mecca for surfers and digital nomads, with a large overlap between the two groups. Marina and I are not surfers, we left that to our son and his girlfriend. But we had a fantastic and much too short time there, just enjoying the warm ocean waters, snorkeling in a jellyfish sanctuary, swimming into underwater limestone caves, jumping from a cliff into the blue waters, paddling transparent canoes between mangrove trees, getting massaged, and so on. Other than surfing, we had a complete tourist experience. I am sure that the T-shirt I bought there will keep those memories fresh!
Clothes don’t last forever, however. I can still remember some sweaters, T-shirts and caps from earlier travels, from Mount St.Helens in the USA, from New Zealand, and from Thailand, but the items have long ago been donated to someone or have gone to that great washing machine in the sky.
Fortunately, the memories from those and many other trips are not gone, they are still cruising through the confused corridors of my mind. In order to keep track, I keep my photographic “memories” in dated folders on my laptop and in a Google Drive.
However, just having these pictures and videos in digital storage, without looking at them, would be somewhat pointless. That’s one reason why I dive into the Drive from time to time, to find something that I can share here with you other Globetrotters. Thank you, editors, for the monthly challenge prompts, these set the creaky gears in my brain into motion, and guide me towards particular images and stories to share.
Finally, we bought a great souvenir in Zanzibar, a couple of years ago. A used, carved window frame, with the glass panes removed. I have inserted some self-printed pictures of our travel experiences in place of the window panes. Our intention is to have some digital memories printed professionally and to insert these, then hang the “window” on the wall. I should (could) have done that long ago, of course, but I was just too busy with procrastination (and some work).
There were quite a few responses to this month’s “souvenir” challenge that I really enjoyed:
Anne Bonfert shares my views about useful souvenirs:
I love Ellen Eastwood’s habit of collecting interesting rocks, pebbles or shells:
And of course, I have to mention Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages and her handwritten journal-supported travel memories:
Finally, Bell Dae has written about travel memories inspired by people that she met during a Canadian trip:
