Of Talismans and Travel

Before I left on my last big trip, a journey that took my husband and me through eight different countries in six months' time, one of my dearest friends gave me this bracelet.

On a small card, which I still have, she scrawled:

Wear in good health and may you be safe -- XO Michelle

Michelle and I had traveled together before (in Peru and Guatemala) so I knew from past experience that these particular beads, these evil eyes, held meaning for her. On each of our previous expeditions she'd worn similar charms around her neck to protect herself from the preying ways of potential thugs, thieves or the like.

I put her bracelet on the day I received it and in the past two and a half years, it's rarely left my wrist. Just the other day, it broke. The silver casing holding one of the beads simply snapped and the whole thing fell to the kitchen floor as I was cleaning the coffee machine.

I heard it hit the ground and looked down at my feet wondering what had made the noise. When I saw my bracelet limp across the floor, an audible gasp escaped my lips. Those beads had seen me through so many strange lands, so many foreign situations, that I too had come to believe in the protective power of the evil eye.

The loss of this lucky charm has caused me to think about what other small trinkets I've carried about the world as I travel far from home, about what I consider my travel talismans.

There are, of course, my snippets of Sadie hair that have seen me through numerous trips and flights. And I do have a certain day pack I've found to be particularly useful on the road. It has gone on so many journeys with me that it as become, in my mind, a travel necessity.

And then there is this rock, this vaguely heart-shaped dusty gray rock, that has made the rounds with me as well. Like the evil eye bracelet, this rock was given to me as I prepared to take off on my last big trip, the Global Roam.

A group of women I know gathered for a happy hour send off at an area bar overlooking a nearby lake. One of the women came in late, the last to arrive. She'd been out watching the waves break on the shoreline, she said, and produced the rock.

She sent the rock circling the table, instructing each woman there to concentrate her well wishes for my safe travel and healthy return into its form before passing it on, all the way around to me, with whom it would remain. I was to pack the rock in my travel gear and in that way, their prayers -- and a little piece of my home state -- would accompany me, she said.

I was touched by the gesture and the pause I saw each woman give the rock as it circled the group. I brought it home, shared its significance with my hub and promptly added it to the growing stack of things to pack.

The rock almost didn't make the packing cut. It's hard to pack for six months on the road. Lots of items get chucked for their bulkiness or weight. The rock, at one point, was set aside as "heavy."

But my husband, dear man, secretly slipped the rock into my bag. I didn't discover it there until we were already on the road three weeks. When I held it up, curious but happy to see it there, Quang smiled and shrugged.

"We'll take all the prayers we can get," he said.