Sunday, May 8, 2011

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 13

Somewhere you'd like to move to or visit.

I've been dreading today's prompt because unlike a lot of people I know, I've never really drooled over any specific location. My friend Katie loves Nova Scotia. Lucy and Sarah both went to school at NMU and really love the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

But I've never experienced any level of attachment to a certain place.

Don't get me wrong; I love the idea of traveling. But I'm terribly indecisive. And given my background, that makes sense. My dad's from Lublin, Poland; my mom was raised in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Yet somehow, my sister and I wound up in Michigan.

I didn't travel much as a kid. But I knew a lot of people who did. And I was jealous. So in the fifth grade, I started collecting postcards. I don't remember where I got the idea, exactly, but I hadn't yet discovered the Internet, and considered postcard collecting to be the best form of virtual travel. So whenever someone I knew mentioned that they were going somewhere, I asked them to either send or come back with a postcard. I still do this (hint, hint).

Meanwhile, whenever I went somewhere, I'd make sure to pick up a postcard or two. I still do this. I brought a few back with me from Pittsburgh this past March.

The picture above includes only a portion of my collection. It has grown to include not only places, but things that interest me: everything from art to literature to ridiculously cute baby animals. I also have a whole series called "Great American Women." Each postcard includes a picture of an American woman with a description of her contribution to history. There are something like twenty-five of them.

If I ever live in one place long enough, I'd like to use my postcards as wallpaper. But for now, I settle for making posters and decorating notebooks full of poetry with them. I still don't really know why I continue to collect postcards after all these years. But every time I look at one of them, I'm reminded of who gave it to me or where I was when I picked it up. I often don't even remember to ask people to send them anymore. But they still do. I've even gotten a few in my mailbox over the years that just say, "This is for your postcard collection."

I took a class my senior year of high school called Literature, Culture, and the Humanities. In it, we covered everything from literature to architecture to film to paintings. I feel like that's my postcard collection in a nutshell. So, this is everything that matters. Yes, that's right, the entire world matters. And yes, I can fit it into a box that I store under my bed.

It kind of makes me feel better about not knowing what the hell I want to do with my life, where I want to focus my energy. But I digress.

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