The first, and the one I have thought about the longest, is Peru. I remember seeing a picture of Machu Pichu in an old history book my father had as a child. I remember being dumfounded by the image. It looked so amazing and ethereal and yet so familiar. Anyone who knows me, knows that I don't believe in spirituality or para-psychology; I keep an open mind and give any claim the benefit of the doubt until it is clear that, sadly, there is no doubt.
My reaction to this picture or at least me recall of my reaction to it, might give pause for thought if I didn't hold such strong convictions. For what it's worth the picture always looked like some kind of a home to me - my home - a place familiar, comfort, happiness. That's the emotions I connect with it, make no supernatural connection, I don't, even if I did at a younger age. Maybe that is the enduring appeal of the place, that youthful wonder at imagining a life lived far from all I knew.
I would dearly love to spend a few months in the high mountains of Peru with some remote tribe, becoming part of the daily life of their tribe. I have some crazy notion about helping them build a rope bridge across a deep canyon. It's a romantic notion that I hope to someday fulfil, at least as far as rope bridge buidling; I draw the line at bridge building aver bottomless ravines.
There is something about high, remote places that appeals to me, although I could never be a climber. I grew up in Howth where we regularly climed to the top of the hill of Howth with sheer cliffs assailing us at every turn and only the prize of a fantastic view at the remote peak driving us on.
I love to ski, and a big part of that is being at the top of a mountain in the early morning watching the sun rise behind mountains while the wind blows drifts of snow from the peak. It gives me a deep sense of calm to be there and works even with the remoteness of memory.
High places, are simple places: cold, remote, free of complexity, free of ambiguity, it's a challenge - do or do not, there is no try.
The other place I would love to visit is McMurdo sound in the Antartic. I don't quite know why, but I remember a friend telling me about Jello Biafra drilling holes into ancient glaciers and pushing microphones deep, deep into the hole to record the clicks and cracks of ancient ice making its daily grind. Later, as I learned to love skiing, I loved the expanse of snow and the cold.
I don't for a minute think I could step into that environment and prosper. I do think that months of daily grind and misery (as it may be...) would be worth the transcendent moment that I would see the sun rise and fall in a matter of minutes, illuminating a wind-swept, seemingly endless expanse of ice, snow and rock.
Call me weird, but sitting beside a pool in the sun just doesn't appeal to me.
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