Aimee’s World Tour

Sometimes I have to ask myself Aimee, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?  All this travel when you could be doing other things.  When you could be doing what everyone else is doing.  The norm.  Building credit.  Saving for retirement.  Paying off a house.  Popping out babies. 

And then I find myself walking past a random Asian giftshop in France.  A little figurine sits in the window.  For anyone else, that little guy might look nice on a shelf in the living room.  But for me it’s a symbol of success and satisfaction.  Of accomplishment.   Because I know he is much more than a form of decor.

This minature statue has been created in the likeness of a warrior from the tomb of the first emperor of China discovered in Xi’an in 1974.  Instead of one small souvenir, in reality,  he represents 7000 carved life-sized men and horses found in the pits of Xi’an.

I’ve been to Xi’an.  I’ve seen the Terracotta Warriors.  And while a lot is still under excavation, it is something unreal.  That such an elaborate display was created in preparation for the death of one man shows the power he had.

The facts come rushing back into my mind as I look in the window.  And suddenly all I want to do is call Justine because she too can see past the commercialization of this trinket.  It was actually Justine’s idea that we make the trek to Xi’an in the first place and so I have her to thank for this moment of triumph.   

It’s something small, something silly but something that made me realize why traveling is valuable.  Why it isn’t a waste of time but an investment.  Why we don’t understand the places we’ve not been.  And thus the world never really fully understands itself. 

Tags: 1

This entry was posted on Friday, July 16th, 2010 at 4:12 am and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.