It’s my birthday. I’m 34 years old today. And I also happen to be 24 weeks pregnant today. (with twins. as many of you already know.)
In this picture I stand in my backyard. Although it’s a fairly new backyard, it’s certainly not exotic. By the looks of me in this photo, and the inevitable lifestyle that is subsequent to photos like these, I think it is safe to assume I won’t be going anywhere exotic any time soon.
Since I no longer live in the middle of Europe, the long weekends to Paris, Brussles, and Prague are over. For quite sometime this blog page will be void of posts about skiing in Chamonix and surfing in San Sebastian.
I’m round, and tired, and have carpal tunnel as well as sinus issues. I can’t walk or stand for longer than an hour without feeling like I will collapse. Fortunately I live in a place that is mostly sunny, I have a great view, lots of birds in my backyard, and a nice chaise lounge. I can also “sit pretty” (pun intended) knowing that while my traveling may come to a halt, I can still make art, find neat stuff in my neighborhood, and write about it all.
I will also be taking this time to use this page to live vicariously through others.
Which brings me to my first exhibit.
This is a map that was created with the use of gene markers embedded in human DNA. (or so I think) It traces an ancient route of prehistoric migration. 60,000 years ago our ancestors walked out of Africa, across the Middle East and Asia, and crossed into North America. Paul Salopek, an award winning writer and journalist, is walking this journey again. He started in 2013 and he won’t finish until 2020. He began in Ethiopia, Africa, and he will end at Tierra del Fuego, South America. A walk of this magnitude, along this route, has never before been attempted. He will cover 22,000 miles. Every 100 miles Paul rests and recounts his recent experience. He shares descriptions and photographs on everything from tastes and smells to human encounters.
This project initially caught my attention back in 2013 when Paul was just kicking off. It’s been an arduous excursion ever since, which has made it fascinating to follow. Luckily Paul is an educated professional, not some rando-blogger like me, so the work is real and the reporting is competent.
Due to the enormity of the scale of this project it needs funding. I of course, donated and got my name on the digital donor map.
For $25 the section of the walk that I funded is…
…somewhere in Turkey. By the looks of it, I like to think that I helped Paul and his crew cross the Euphrates river. The dispatch that comes closest to my section of the walk is here. It is titled Mule-ology and it goes like this…
“A donkey is a member of the equine family burdened by low self-esteem: a small, modest, long-eared creature from which mules are bred when mated with a horse. In other words, a donkey is the crude base metal from which a superior alloy—the mule—is forged.”
If you click the link there is obviously much more to this article. If you like travel-adventure I encourage you to get into the rest of this interesting story at the Out of Eden Walk website, or the National Geographic website.
Thanks for reading…and please come back again to my slightly skewed Globetrotting Blog.
