On the road
Earlier in the summer, generous friends invited my husband, our daughter and me to visit them on the coast of Maine. Boston was caught in the maw of a hot, humid heat wave, and we eagerly headed north. Over a long weekend, we swam, hiked, walked on the beach and sat talking with our friends on the porch. Our daughter floated in the bay in an inner tube, her nose in a book, her legs in the water. As Maine resident E. B. White put it in Charlotte's Web, "Every day was a happy day, and every night was peaceful."
With a Monday morning class looming, we headed back south, rested, relaxed and cool. When we arrived home, our daughter disappeared into her room, clearly intent on some mysterious purpose. My husband and I unpacked, started the laundry, made a shopping list, checked e-mail. Later that evening, our daughter emerged and said, "Mom! We've got to go back to Maine. I felt so much more creative up there!"
What is it about traveling that sets our imaginations free? In the 17th century, haiku poet Matsuo Bashō described how his journeys on foot through Japan gave rise to new ways of thinking and being for him. "Every turn of the road brought me new thoughts," he wrote, "and every sunrise gave me fresh emotions."
