Textuality Writing Challenge #2

Here's Amy Sorenson's second Textuality Writing Challenge, which was posted on her blog Wednesday.

Write a vacation memory. It can be from a trip you took last week or one you took seventeen years ago; the time of the experience doesn't matter. Rather than writing a list of what you did on the trip, try to focus on exploring one small moment, some small experience (it can be good or bad) that has stuck in your memory. Write with the goal of getting your reader to feel what you felt.

Here's what I wrote:

Sitting on the balcony overlooking Lake Garda, sunshine beaming down on the book I’m reading, a slight breeze floating in over the water, muffled sounds wafting around me, gentle lapping water, people talking five stories below as they walk along the waterfront . . . I can’t believe I’m here. Yes, little ol’ me, southern girl from Texas, raised in a middle-class blue-collar family, the girl who took seven years to work her way through college then went back to get a teaching certificate (Mama was right, I should have trained to be a teacher all along), the woman who married young and foolishly, started over again, the woman who never dreamed she would have this much love, fun and adventure in her life. Here I sit with the most wonderful husband in the world, enjoying this peaceful afternoon in Italy. ITALY! I still can’t believe I’ve now become a world traveler.

Not a world traveler in the classy sense of the word mind you. No, not me. Since this trip began eight days ago, I’ve experienced exhaustion, barely avoided car sickness in London, bowled an elderly lady down on an escalator, purchased a cute sweater that I have no idea how to wash since the care label is in Russian, unsuccessfully tried to cook microwave oatmeal in a Russian microwave, and ordered a pepperoni pizza only to discover that “pepperoni” is the Italian word for “peppers.” But sitting here on the balcony, relaxed in my chair, feet propped on the railing, book in hand, sunshine beaming down, the love of my life sitting across from me, life is good. God is good.