Of Clippings and Travel

I'm a clipper.

It started with my mom. She's a clipper, too. I'm forever getting envelopes in the mail filled with newspaper stories or magazine text she thinks I would find of interest.

The other week, for example, she mailed me an obituary for a dog that she spotted in her local paper.

Before that, she mailed me a slim little column about a workshop being offered in her area on "How to Communicate with your Dog." (note reoccurring dog theme)

I inherited this clipping gene. It's a trait that has only been made worse by my work as a freelance writer.

In part, my ability to make money from writing depends on my ability to narrow in on interesting little tidbits that I think I could turn into larger stories and sell.

I am forever tearing chunks of text out of every publication that comes my way. The clippings pile up and turn into mounds that irritate my hubby who finds it taxing to live amongst my "papers," which I am physically unable to contain to just one room of the house.


My travel lust has only exasperated the situation as I rip out stories on places I think I'd like to go. I have a file drawer full of articles, essays, restaurant recommendations, off-the-beaten path finds and other odds and ends about places here and places there.

Luckily, I've got a couple of good girlfriends who are also chronic clippers.

Even better, they are friends that share my wanderlust. This means that most of the clippings they send me are about far-off locals to which we've usually traveled together. I return the favor. In this way, our trips and memories of distant places stay alive.

My most recent clippings-for-friends have both involved Guatemala, a country to which I traveled years ago. These two are bound for my travel buddy Michelle.

The first is about an overcrowded Guatemalan bus (chicken bus no doubt) that went off the road, rolled down a mountain side and killed many.

The second is about four travelers kidnapped by farmers in the Rio Dulce area.

Michelle and I rode those overcrowded Guatemala chicken busses. We stared out over the edges of steep, thin roads praying praying praying the driver kept us all on the blacktop.

And we boated it through Rio Dulce, too.

I re-read these clippings now and I think, "Were we stupid? Insane? Reckless? We were just dumb lucky? How did we ever make it out of Guatemala alive?"

It's a good thing these clippings aren't headed to my mom. I'd never get out of the country again.

Photo: That would be Michelle in the back of a pick up truck with a Guatemalan chicken bus coming up behind.