Rambutan and other firsts

There is a quote in the movie Eat Pray Love about rambutan. I wish I'd written it down. Not sure if it's in the book. If it is, I skimmed over it. So I've been Googling, trying to find that dang quote because as soon as I heard it, I remembered being drawn to the hairy little lychee-like fruit at Mercat de La Boqueria our last day in Barcelona. I took this picture and then purchased (and consumed) the rambutan, along with a few other exotic treats.

2005 was a big year of firsts. I went to Europe. I also went to California. I turned 39 (for the first time). Lizz went to Japan. We bought a house.

The way I look at it, I sort of bookended the year with responsibility. I had my will done before going abroad. So that meant making some serious, grown-up decisions. Even though I left my 15-year-old daughter in the very capable hands of my sister while I traveled, the whole time I was gone I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Would this go on the list? I remember sometimes when I called she sounded very very small. I remember that voice. But then my fifteen-year-old went off to Japan that summer and came back all wise and grown up. Mostly.

I am so pleased we both experienced memorable international travels that year. And I know we both intend to have many more. There were a lot of reasons I felt I needed to go on that trip. But I very much wanted to share as much of it as possible with Lizz, so I had this great idea that I'd write to her every day in my journal. That worked for the first day. The part where I was on the plane for six hours. But I took lots of pictures and when I got back home I gathered the notes I'd collected on napkins and scraps of paper and spent an afternoon at a coffee shop writing journal entries for each and every day. I came across the journal this past weekend and it got me thinking.

Am I allowed to go back that far to write about a travel experience? Because I'm sort of hatching an idea. Thanks for listening.