Passport Memories

I am sitting here looking at the pages of my old passport as it is time to put this one away becaue I just received my new one. This one has seen a lot of use and holds the stamps from many interesting trips. There is a stamp from my first trip to Puerto Vallarta Mexico in 1998 where I lost my heart to a nation and a people. I have been back to PV many times too bad the officials in Mexico don’t stamp your passport every time you enter.

There are the stamps from several trips to Taipei where my last trip in 2004 I was able to visit some of the historical sites with one of my peers who had been born in Taiwan and whose father was part of Taiwan’s succession from China and even to this day, he is considered an enemy of the country of China.

I have a couple of trips to Japan documented, one in 2001 where on my 1st wedding anniversary I walked along the shore of the Pacific Ocean picking up a small shell that looked just like the one that just one week prior I had picked up from along the Washington coast where my husband and I had walked the beach an ocean away.

In 2000 just a couple of weeks after I was married I took my passport with me where I spent almost two weeks in Hong Kong and China. It was really hard to give up my US Passport in Hong Kong so that I could get a Visa to go into China. I was really relieved the day I picked up my passport that still has my name in Chinese stuck to the front of it.

I even have a stamp from my trip into Calgary Canada in 2004. It was a trip to Lake Louise where my friend Denie and I spent 10 days hiking in the Canadian Rockies. It was the last trip the two of us have taken together. She lives in Illinois and I live out here in Washington and yet the distance is never an issue for our friendship. It was on one our hiking trips that I ended up breaking my foot and then hiking for 4 more days before I had it checked and put in a cast. I just couldn’t let her down.

2004 was another land mark trip with a friend. I had to go to Warsaw Poland for a business meeting and I took my friend Mary with me. Mary and I met on that 1st trip to PV in 1998. Today she and I are friends that are closer than sisters. On our trip to Poland we walked in places that some of the worst crimes against humanity happened in Auschwitz and Birkenau and we also walked in places of great beauty like the park dedicated to Mozart.

The last country stamp is from a trip to Dublin Ireland that Kyle and I took in 2005. Again I had to go for a few days of meetings and then we took time just to visit this country of my ancestors; a country that captured the heart of my husband and a trip full of delightful memories for us both.

On the very last page of this passport is where it was amended after I was married. With this passport being expired it is the last official document that bore my maiden name, Husband. Who knows maybe I need to write on what it was like to grow up being a Husband, but now that I’m a wife does it really matter?