Little Bag of Luck
Before I left Italy, a lovely gift came my way from an even lovelier person. It was a tiny cloth bag filled with unusual objects, each one with its own message and meaning. I have carried this Little Bag of Luck with me in my backpack all the way through our six months and I believe that it has brought us plenty of luck. We also received Lucky Dollars from our hosts, Ray and Amy, on the farm in North Carolina and Emily got a Safe Travel amulet in Japan. These too have played their part in our journey.
I’m not really superstitious but I have to admit that I was a little bit anxious setting off on such a long trip with so many unknown elements and being responsible for Emily’s well-being along the way. When I write our daily message recounting our day, I am aware that it often sounds like everything is rather fairytale-like and you must sometimes wonder did we meet any adversity along our way. Well, of course we did. We have fallen out with each other a few times but no more than expected between teenager and mother. We have had some minor illnesses such as allergic reactions to insect bites, upset tummies and headaches. We also have been in plenty of situations where we felt far from our comfort zone in terms of where we were sleeping or what we were eating or the people we were working with. We have had long, sometimes uncomfortable, journeys which have lasted for days and were exhausting. But these were all part of our experience and we just had to take a deep breath at those moments and plough on. Chocolate helped, mind you.
On several occasions, places we visited experienced adverse weather before we arrived or just after we left. Hurricane Florence hit the farm in North Carolina two weeks after our departure and flooded the whole ground floor with a foot of water where we had been sleeping. We flew out of Hawaii just hours before a major storm hit the Island. We arrived in Osaka a few days after a typhoon had caused huge destruction to the airport and landslides devastated parts of Hiroshima a few weeks before we visited. Cairns was expected to be the target of Cyclone Owen while we stayed there and Ross, the owner of the house we were in, was making preparations to return home to help us if it did actually hit. Fortunately the cyclone made landfall more gently than predicted and we were spared that experience.
Several times I wondered if this good fortune was thanks to the infamous ‘Luck of the Irish’ or if our Little Bag of Luck was in fact the reason that we were escaping untouched. Either way, I acknowledge that a long trip such as this benefits from a certain amount of (bagged) luck and we definitely had our fair share as we travelled. Access to chocolate is also recommended.
Le grá,
Gill