If you had only two years left to live, how would you choose to spend your time? I suspect that "with loved ones" is the most common answer to that question, and I suspect that "travel" is another strong contender. There is so much to see in this big, beautiful world, and one would want to see more of it in the time one had left.
What the travel answer misses is that if you have only two years to live you probably don't feel up to doing all that much. Trust me on this one.
This is not to say I have only two years to live. In fact, I have no idea how much longer I have. But the question of how to spend my remaining time is a real one. I too wish to spend time with my loved ones, and I too would like to see more of the world before it's my time to leave it.
In pursuit of the first goal, I have booked a flight to go visit Gita before my next infusion at the end of the month. This will be my first solo travel since I got really sick. It should be fine, though: it's a short flight and the airport is only 20 minutes' drive away. I'm very much looking forward to getting away and spending time with Gita and her cats at her place in Atlanta.
The second goal is harder (at least, beyond Atlanta). I am simply not up to going to see Angkor Wat or Machu Picchu or most of the rest of the glorious sites (and sights) of the world. So how does one make the most of one's time if one has so little energy?
One answer I have recently discovered is documentaries. I can't go to Angkor Wat or Machu Picchu, but I can watch documentaries about them. Specifically, I have found a series put out by the Smithsonian Channel on Paramount+ called Aerial X, where X is the country or region that is the subject of a given film. The footage is all shot from the air, at varying heights. So far Anand and I have flown (virtually) over Ireland, Great Britain, New Zealand, Greece, and Italy. I've been able to bask in stunning scenery and vibrant colors. We're even getting ideas for which few places we might manage to get to IRL (in real life) if and when it becomes more feasible. It also means I've learned to use the remote to the TV Gita installed in our living room back when I got my diagnosis.
I've pretty much stopped taking tourist photos since you can always find much better pictures online anyway - including aerial shots like the ones you're enjoying. And maybe it's just me, but all the fancy places I visit end up getting mixed up in my mind, and the stuff I buy there ends up cluttering the house. I still do enjoy trips to far-off places, but I also trips to really close places, like a walk around campus - there's always something new to discover, something to get me out of a rut.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has been to Machu Pikchu and other incredible sites in Peru, I can confirm that it is stunning but also that it is definitely not the right travel for you. The altitude and the endless stairs were exhausting. But maybe a cruise with some excursions? Or even one without excursions? I remember the cruise I went on to Alaska we just looked at the glaciers from the boat.
ReplyDeleteIt occurs to me that a larger cruise might be inhibitive because of the risk of disease, but there are the subgenre of smaller, more intimate cruises that are lead by professors who lecture every evening. I know Princeton organizes several of those - I think I got an ad for one to the Galápagos?
DeleteArmchair travel—definitely my style
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