On the occasion of my recent birthday — another year added to the total — a friend sent a card carrying an invitation to go to Malaysia with her in the fall. 

Years ago, I would have been all over that invitation, my wanderlust a never-satiated bonfire.  I took advantage of any and all travel opportunities.  I wanted to see what I thought of as grand things — Mount Rushmore, the Eiffel Tower, the Bonzai Pipeline, the Leaning Tower of Piza, the White Cliffs of Dover — and did.  

Now, such wanderlust has died down to a smoldering ember at best.  The journeys that call to me are subtler, and of a more internal nature.  As I spend the week in southern California with my family, I find the small things are pleasing me — the wooden box full of herbal Tazo teas that is the answer to my question "Do you have any herbal tea?"; the opportunity to eat outside, any meal, any town, and bring your dog (I wish ours was with us); and the abundance of flowers, apricot oranges, deep fushias, buttercup yellows, dancing by the side of the road, along the ocean shore, up the hills, or posing, cut, in glass cubes or black raku vases in hotel lobbies, shop counters, centered on restaurant tables.  

Similar pleasures surround me at home—I know they do—but it's oh, so much easier to find them when I'm away.  And that's reason enough for me to continue going the distance, for these sweet moments of true perceptual re-creation.