July 14, 1998

People keep asking me where I'm going this summer. My friendly grocery clerks at Ken's Market, people from work, and anyone else who knows me assumes that I'm trotting off to some foreign port this summer. Not this time. For various reasons (not the least of which is finances), my summer is largely devoted to lazing around Seattle and enjoying the Pacific Northwest.

I still experience some of the adventure of traveling because of all my faithful friends around the world. They keep in touch through e-mail, the single most important feature of the Internet in my opinion. The periodic missives from Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, India, Australia, Norway, and Japan make me feel a part of some international fraternity, and I get my travel fix from them.

Of course I'm anxious to visit my friends and see their homes for real, but I can't ignore the comfort I get from my foreign correspondences. I have met almost every one of these distant friends, most of whom have stayed in my home, and I have already visited several of them in their home countries. The memories from all those previous travels serve me well this summer as I sit in my backyard admiring my husband's gorgeous gardens and dreaming of distant places. It's a good summer right at home.