About a year ago, I thought that I would write an ode to my expiring passport. I feel a bit strange writing a dedication to a little dark blue book. Mao distributed his little red books of Communist theory like crazy in China, but I am fond of the blue with the golden eagle.

With two sets of extra pages, my travel documents look like a mini book of the world. When I am waiting for my flights abroad, often leaf through and recall my past adventures and misadventures as they are identified by the colorful stamps and visas that populate my pages. People often ask to look at my passport and marvel at all the bizarre places I’ve gone to, wondering where these exotic locales are.

Armenia?

Cambodia?

What’s that funny alphabet on that stamp?

YOU LIVED IN BOSNIA??? ARE YOU CRAZY?

You were an Argentina resident?

How did you score a five-year visa for Brazil? I only got a 90 day one!

Explaining my Arabic lettered stamps to the security guard at the AMIA, the Jewish Cultural Center of Buenos Aires, was not a comfortable thing to do considering the various bombings on Jewish targets in Argentina.

A recent scenario:

Jan 14, 2008
San Francisco International Airport

“Why did you go to France?” the young blond haired, blue-eyed US customs agent asks me.

“I went for love,” I respond, realizing full well that this is not the typical customs-line answer.

“You went to France for love?” she asks, her eyebrows raised.

“Yes”

“And?”

“The guy wasn’t interested in a committed romantic relationship,” I answer. I omit that I too was weary of a commitment.

“You went all the way to France to figure that out?” she inquires. I am obviously more entertaining than the majority of the passengers today.

“Yes. If I hadn’t gone to Paris, I would have never known if he and I were a match or not,” I respond.

“Wow. That’s quite adventurous of you,” the customs agent said. She then proceeded to look through my passport and ask about what I was doing in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan three years ago.

Looking for love in Paris was an easy sell, but my whereabouts on the border with Afghanistan were not.

The fading tire marks on the back of my passport from when my passport flew out of my hands and onto the Tel Aviv Airport tarmac always bring a smile to my face even though that trip was a difficult emotional journey from modern Israel to the dismal refugee camps of the Gaza Strip. See: http://www.susansword.com/middle_east/flying_passport.html

Is this a new era for me? Perhaps. The acupuncturist I saw in Beijing told me that I need to stop traveling because my spleen is too weak and can’t take my constant moves.

But I am a global girl on the move? Am I stuck now with just the Discovery Channel? It will suffice for now as I am tired of being on the go and do like to “visit” from the comfort of my couch. My body needs to fortify itself and then I can take my newly minted travel papers and get some more color on the pages. Maybe I’ll forgo the tire marks on the back this time!

Knowing me, there’s another adventure around the corner.

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