Far and Wide, Across the Years

Just a small corner on one shelf among all the bookshelves here . . .

An old-fashioned glass pop bottle (you recognize the brand, right?  Even though it's written in Hebrew?) that I brought home with me from my first visit to Israel in 1974.  It was empty for years but I filled it with pancake syrup a couple of decades ago so that the beautiful Hebrew lettering would stand out.

A small oval icon of the Incarnation (Madonna and Child in western terms) that my Orthodox Christian Godmother brought me from a monastery in Greece a few years ago.  

A glass box full of small white moonstones that I gathered along the shore of a lagoon near my home when I was still in high school about 1966.  

Some books waiting to be finished or started, the authors mostly from countries somewhere across the sea:  Serbia, Russia, Mount Athos in Greece . . .  

 It's a well-traveled little corner, spanning the years of my life, while also wandering across several countries far and wide.  My own international wanderings are limited to Israel, Jordan, England, Wales, and France, all so many years ago.  These days I wander around the world only virtually; my traveling days are over.  But I am quite satisfied with that.