Scotland. That is all.

#TRUST30 Prompt for today:  Travel by Chris Guillebeau

If we live truly, we shall see truly. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?

In high school, I loved reading romance novels.  But not for the reasons you might expect a high school girl to love them.  OK, full disclosure – not ONLY for the reasons you might expect a high school girl to love them.  To be sure, the often titillating prose sparked my adolescent fantasies, featuring the quintessentially powerful, yet tender lover who saves the feisty heroine, the which, though fiercely independent, somehow lacked the necessary je ne sais quoi to extricate herself from the evil clutches of the villain du jour.   (Notice the sprinkling of words from another language – a prominent feature of such literature).  The heart races!

While that craving for romance, to some degree, still runs deep through my psyche, an even deeper yearning was planted in the soul of that small-town Iowa girl – Scotland.  Of the dozens of settings, in the dozens of epochs found in those novels, the one place which has inexplicably drawn me is Scotland.  Even though my schoolgirl yearnings were mostly left behind, over the years, there has remained a palpable attraction for that ancient place.  Even with a more mature (I hope) grasp of the complexities of culture, a sense of the stark beauty of the climate and geography, an appreciation of the influence of the Celtic past on the present, the desire remains.  I want to go to Scotland.

Now to the crux of the assignment.  How do I make sure to get there before I die?

Here’s where the romance and yearning of my naively hopeful optimism is overtaken by the sensible logic of the me that tries to stay grounded in reality.  The mundane practicalities of logistics easily trump the unreality of a long-held dream.  What I need is a good dose of 2nd (or 3rd or perhaps 10th) naivete to help me reconnect with and reclaim it. No answers for now.  But perhaps this public sharing of the dream will provide the impetus I need because I now feel the reader looking over my shoulder and wondering when I will buy a ticket.