Another way to fly

So the body hasn't been able to go very far lately. It's been stuck with responsibility and lack of opportunity, in a cold, white, wintry, windy world that now is home. But that doesn't mean I haven't traveled.

I just got back from a sojourn courtesy Elinor Burkett, who took me along for her year in Kyrgystan through her book, So Many Enemies, So Little Time. That was perhaps a trip best taken second hand since it included frustrations over everything from food to politics to heating systems to visa applications.

But I learned. About journalism in a post-Soviet society, about women in a post-Taliban society, about Iraqis' views of Americans in a pre-war society.

Previous to traveling through her book, I traveled to southern Utah for an inside look at a fundamentalist community. Again -- thankful not to have experienced it first-hand, I became ever-so-grateful for where I was born and how I have lived.

Now I'm traveling through time, as I experience the Depression through the eyes of an author whose research makes the fictional story educational as well as entertaining.

So yes, though I'd generally rather be the one traveling and writing about my discoveries, I must admit sometimes it just can't be. Time-travel or Afghanistan travel must be considered impossible and unlikely in that order.

That's what books are for.