The right timing



I've been saving this for almost a year. I put it on the back shelf; stowed it away for the right moment.    This "it," an e-mail, was left buried deep in my inbox; from time to time I considered unearthing it, blowing away the dust that surely coated the message and responding to its inquiries. But I didn't; it was too soon. Until this evening when the timing became perfect.

This e-mail contains the travel documents for my January 2018 trip to Antartica. It requested my coat size for my winter parka that will be provided for this epic excursion to the icy continent.  I had paid the booking fee for the trip in the spring but it seemed ridiculous to do anything more since the trip  was more than a year away.

So I left the e-mail unanswered for months and months but tonight I realized as this year concludes, the timeline for the trip has significantly jumped forward. The time was right, I decided, to answer that  e-mail.

I don't know how many people go to Antartica. I suspect not a ton.  Maybe those who travel to it do so because they want to catch a glimpse of an elusive continent that is vanishing. Environmental perils have swarmed around Antartica for as long as I can remember. The perils only seem to be mounting and while this news causes me to feel fear in the pit of my stomach, I am not making this trip so I can see Antartica before it melts away. I am going to it because I love it. I fell in love  with Antartica the first time I ever saw it; in a Imax show that played at the Denver Museum of Natural History in the 90s. Honestly, I had never seen anything more spell-binding, more sci-fi-looking and more gorgeous in my life. Antartica is just bigger, badder and bolder than anything else. In the time since seeing that show I've covered a lot of ground; I pride myself on seeing a pretty good chunk of this world but it still doesn't compare to what I witnessed on that giant movie screen 20 plus years ago.

Turns out I am not the only one who was smitten. My parents were too. When I announced that was I planning on making this trip, my mother approached me, asking how I thought about maybe her and my father tagging along. Next thing I knew, they announced they were going. We immediately huddled around their computer at the dinning room table, looking at the itinerary and making cabin selections. Our excitement seemed to sizzle in the air. We laughed that we had a very, very long wait period. Not anymore! Time to gear up and get that parka!

Comments

Popular Posts