Thinking About Croatia

I've been consumed for about a week with travel lust.  I'm feeling the wind and am rendered dumb by the scent of the Adriatic Sea as I cruise along the Croatian coast, headed for Dubrovnik.  I see cliffs against blue sky and turquoise ocean, dotted with islands.  Only in my mind of course.   Also in my mind, life has new meaning and I grow younger each day, with plenty of schemes for stretching a pitifully limited budget to cover a year living in Eastern Europe.   I could teach English, I could mop floors, the list goes on more, but mostly less, realistically. 

The mood-boost of this kind of thinking lasts only so long as I don't think about being sick in a campsite in Beograd or the eventual return to the States with empty pockets and broken employment bridges.  How can one preserve the joy that comes with dreaming and scheming, without having to follow through with an ultimately self-damaging plan?  What is the method for mood that corresponds to canning tomatoes?   Of course nothing CAN beat an August tomato eaten warm off the vine; but Mom's home canned ones tasted unaccountably great in January.  

So, this is a call for personal experience and ideas that relate to the wise use and stewardship of our human habit of fantasy ideation and escapist dreaming.  What role do you think it plays in our lives?


Happy Spring (in Ljubljana),  Celia