It is Sunday morning in Huahine. A little later than usual we took our walk to Fare and the Sunday market.  We found coco bread, poulet au citron, and two neems (fresh egg rolls).  Fare was quiet and I wondered if less people were around because of the chikungunya outbreak (regretably, the subject of most of our conversations). I joked in my last post, “Becoming the Mosquito” that I might be restricted to making all my Inky Binkies from inside of the house.

I remember something that I read in Alain De Botton’s book, The Art of Travel that I mentioned in the very first post I wrote for this blog (About: Who Am I?). I am sure Virgina Darney will remember this story from the Islands program. De Botton describes a book by Xavier de Maitre about room travel that made him famous in 1790. Journey around my Bedroom begins well: de Maistre locks his door and changes into his pink-and-blue pajamas. With no need of luggage he travels to his sofa…

De Maistre’s book (available free on line in translation) suggests that the  pleasure we derive from a journey may be dependent more on the mind-set we travel with than on the destination we travel to. If we could only apply this mind-set to our own locales, we might find these places becoming no less interesting than the beaches of Huahine.

As Marilyn and I contemplate the next steps on this journey, I decided this morning to apply some of these thoughts to a new Inky Binky that I offer here:

De Botton concludes his book (The Art of Travel) with this line: “Xavier de Maistre was gently nudging us to try, before taking off for distant hemispheres, to notice what we have already seen.”

NOTE: While I worked on Journey Around My House, Marilyn worked on this drawing, Chikungunya Visitor.

Finally, I want to share the Jenny Kuperman painting I purchased yesterday, “Molly My Love.” I already wrote about this on Facebook but it is such a cheerful and loving image that I think this Sunday meditation will benefit from the painting’s essence and spirit.