Stopping to Smell Flowers with Basho

One of the joys
of travel -- rare
talk about an iris.

Matsuo Basho

I have discovered the writings of Matsuo Basho, the original haiku master, and oh, what joy!

Who could imagine, that in 2009, a gal in Minneapolis would be reading these teeny poems penned by an dude who lived in Japan during the 1600s?

But Basho was not just any dude. He was a dude after my own soul -- he was a traveler.

He packed up all his belongings and hit the road, walking across all of Japan. More than once! And his haiku chronicle his journey.

I especially like this haiku about the iris. He's right. Travel has the power to pull you outside of yourself. Because you're not at home, following convention, travel gives you permission to stare at a flower, talk about it, take its picture and smell it with utter abandon.

Here's a flower picture I snapped in Bangkok. Not an iris, but the purple color reminded me of one...

On Angelina Jolie and Virignia Woolf

I'm a sucker for Angelina Jolie.

I just can't help it. She fascinates me.

It's got nothing to do with Brad Pitt. I liked her long before he came along.

It's her international thing that draws me in. The adoptions. The philanthropy. The UN speeches. The pop-ups in far-away foreign lands.

Don't we all, on some level, wish we could jet about the globe doing good while enjoying the luxury of a private plane and looking all-out stunning?

Or maybe that's just me.

At any rate, she is my celebrity crush. I easily tune out the torrid Brittany news, but give me a magazine with A.J. on the cover and I'm all over it. So of course I bought the July 2008 Vanity Fair as soon as it hit the stands and greedily devoured the photos and accompanying article.

It wasn't until I had turned the last page that I flipped back to the cover and noticed the tiny print in the lower right corner. It was a quote by Virginia Woolf that I had never seen before, but with which I immediately identified.

It read:

As a woman I have no country. My country is the whole world.