Odyssey to Myself - World Travel Guide and Memoir

By P.C. Zick

Travel to Casablanca and Marrakesh, Tuscany and Venice, Bocas del Toro and Panama City, and Santiago, Chile and back to P.C. Zick's home in the United States.

 

Odyssey to Myself takes the reader on trips to Morocco, Italy, Panama, Chile, and down Route 66 in the United States. The compilation of essays provides travel guides to the places the author visited and follows the internal odyssey as she discovers her place in the world.

 

P.C. Zick writes about her experiences traveling outside the confines of her small world in Florida. Observations about life and culture bring to life the ancient alleyways of Fes, the master artists of Italy, the bustling Panama Canal, and the resilience of the Chilean culture.

 

From P.C. Zick's Odyssey to Myself: "Traveling removes us from our small safe environment and thrusts out into the world. When I travel, I realize what a tiny ripple my life is in the ocean's constant waves. A few months ago, I had to endure a full body MRI that lasted more than two hours. I almost swooned when the nurse told me how long I'd be in that long encompassing tunnel. She recommended I remain awake because if I moved after falling asleep, they'd have to pull me out and begin again. I did not want that to happen. My brain fought against any touch of claustrophobia as they closed me in the tube and sent me inside the machine. I frantically searched through the files in my brain. With a little prayer for help, I went into the tube and decided to travel in my memories back to the most important trips of my life. The first trip I remembered was my visit to Morocco in 2004. I knew it was a watershed year as many things had been happening in my life, and I went on the trip to heal and find direction. I began with my arrival in Casablanca in the early morning hours after flying all night from New York City. It came back so vividly I could even smell and feel the air of my travels during a magical two weeks. Then I started on Italy in 2005, where my daughter and I traveled for a month to celebrate her graduation from college."

 

The two-hour MRI passed by in a blur of memories and inspired her to write about the travels that brought her world into sharp focus.

 

As the author faced a decade-long swirl of tragedies, she discovered traveling outside of her home country and her safe personal zones had brought her new insights, and eventually, a new love. Travel removed her from her narrow world into a kaleidoscope of colors, smells, noises, and textures. This book explores some of those experiences as she embarked on an odyssey to find herself during one of the darkest decades of her life.

 

Buy Odyssey to Myself and be inspired from the stories of one woman's quest to find meaning in a troubled world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: P.C. Zick
• Release date: May 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393088547

P.C. Zick

P.C. Zick began her writing career in 1998 as a journalist. She's won various awards for her essays, columns, editorials, articles, and fiction. She describes herself as a "storyteller" no matter the genre. She's published five works of fiction and two nonfiction books. She was born in Michigan and moved to Florida in 1980. She finds the stories of Florida and its people and environment a rich base for her storytelling platform. Florida's quirky and abundant wildlife - both human and animal - supply her fiction with tales almost too weird to be believable. Her fiction contains the elements most dear to her heart, ranging from love to the environment. In her novels, she advances the cause for wildlife conservation and energy conservation. She believes in living lightly upon this earth with love, laughter, and passion. "This is one of the most exciting times to be an author," Ms. Zick says. "I'm honored to be a part of the revolution in writing and publishing."

Book preview

Odyssey to Myself

World Travel Guide and Memoir

By P.C. Zick

Copyright ©2014 by Patricia Camburn Zick

All rights reserved.

Cover Design and Formatting: The Manuscript Doctor

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact: [e-mail]

.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WHY TRAVEL?

THE BEGINNING

THE NEW MILLENNIUM

AN AWAKENING

THE BIRTHDAY GIFT OF MOROCCO

MOROCCO’S BRIDGE—SUSPENDED BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

CASABLANCA

COUSCOUS AND A LESSON IN MOROCCAN CULTURE

A HENNA PARTY—WATCHING HOPE FADE

SILENCE

LEAVING MOROCCO

ITALY

TUSCANY TRAVELS

ITALY—LEARNING FROM AGE

LESSONS FROM ITALY

FLORENCE AND THE UFFIZI

VENICE AND ROME

SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF

PANAMA

PLANES, DRIVERS, AND CANALS—ALL IN A DAY’S TRAVEL

THE INSTITUTE FOR TROPICAL ECOLOGY CONSERVATION

MY SEARCH FOR THE HOWLER MONKEY

SWITCHING GEARS – THE EX-PATS OF PANAMA

COMING HOME FROM PANAMA

THE MOTHER OF ALL ROADS

IT ALL BEGINS IN CHICAGO

LEAVING CHICAGO

ST. LOUIS AND STONEHENGE

THE REST OF THE TRIP

LIFE CHANGES

CHILE

A PROTEST FOR FLOWERS

FALLING IN LOVE TWICE

THANK YOU

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WORKS BY P.C. ZICK

BONUS EXCERPT

WHY TRAVEL?

MY THIRST FOR TRAVELING began when I was ten years old. My oldest brother, seventeen years older than me, took a job as a high school math teacher on Long Island in 1964. My parents decided we would take a road trip to New York in the summer of 1964 to visit Marv, his wife, and two young sons. My brother Don, fifteen at the time, and I rode in the backseat of the family Pontiac station wagon. I saw saltwater for the first time at Montauk Point, and despite the rocky beach, I reveled in finding a horseshoe crab shell on the beach. The day trip to NYC was both thrilling and exhausting. It's funny I can remember the details of this trip so vividly, even more so than the trip I took to Florida a few weeks ago. Memories of that first major trip created a lifelong passion for travel. I remember lunch at the automat where I inserted a nickel in a slot to receive a slice of lemon meringue pie from behind a small glass door. Truly, could the world be any better than this? Then there was the hurried trip to the top of the Empire State Building, then the tallest building in the world, a walk past the United Nations building, and a ferry to see the Statue of Liberty completed the day. It replayed in my mind for years and forever marked me.

Traveling removes us from our small safe environment and thrusts out into the world. When I travel, I realize what a tiny ripple my life is in the ocean's constant waves. A few months ago, I had to endure a full body MRI that lasted more than two hours. I almost swooned when the nurse told me how long I'd be in that long encompassing tunnel. She recommended I remain awake because if I moved after falling asleep, they’d have to pull me out and begin again. I did not want that to happen. My brain fought against any touch of claustrophobia as they closed me in the tube and sent me inside the machine. I frantically searched through the files in my brain. With a little prayer for help, I went into the tube and decided to travel in my memories back to the most important trips of my life.

The first trip I remembered was my visit to Morocco in 2004. I knew it was a watershed year as many things had been happening in my life, and I went on the trip to heal and find direction. I began with my arrival in Casablanca in the early morning hours after flying all night from New York City. It came back so vividly I could even smell and feel the air of my travels during a magical two weeks. Then I started on Italy from 2005, where my daughter and I went for a month to celebrate her graduation from college. I'd only gotten through the first two days when I heard a voice say they were pulling me out of the tunnel. I cursed silently, thinking I must have moved as I remembered walking the streets of Milan and marveling at all the beautiful shoes.

You were a great patient, the nurse said. It didn't take quite two hours, but almost. You’re done.

That's the beauty of travel. It removes us from our world into a kaleidoscope of colors, smells, noises, and textures. This book explores some of those experiences as I embarked on an odyssey to find myself during one of the darkest decades of my life.

THE BEGINNING

I NEVER WANTED MORE than two children, my mother declared often to her first through fifth children.

I was Five, but I had something going for me that Three and Four didn’t. I was a girl.

I always forgot about my depression at having another child when I held that baby in my arms, Mother said. And each time, I always held out hope the baby would be a girl.

She thought the last part of her pronouncement deserved fanfare. She never realized what it did to the psyche of us in the unwanted category. It scarred us. One of us didn’t survive it.

One and Two—the wanted ones—and Three and Four—the unwanted—were all boys.

By the fourth pregnancy, my parents had hit bottom. My father lost his job, and my mother discovered her pregnancy.

She referred to that time in 1949 as the darkest period of my life.

She told the doctor about her wishes for a daughter. When Four emerged, the doctor told my mother he did his best to help.

I slapped that thing this way and that, but it still wouldn’t fall off, so I guess you’re stuck with another boy.

And with that punch line, my mother became the darling of family gatherings as everyone laughed at her joke. Even though Four laughed, the story inflicted a wound on him from which he would never recover. That stone from my mother’s slingshot hit the heart of Four between the roast beef and mashed potatoes and apple pie.

It’s a cruel thing to discover you’re not a wanted child, but even tougher on someone in Four’s position.

Not only was he not wanted, but he also had a penis. However, for five years, he still held an indisputable claim on my mother’s love. He was her baby with soft blond curls she refused to cut until my father heard someone refer to Four as their daughter.

The birth of Five changed everything. I may have been an unwanted pregnancy but once again, my mother held out hope after her initial disappointment when the rabbit died.

My birth usurped Four’s status into the obscurity of fourth son just as he began his venture into the outside world. I shattered any illusions he might have enjoyed as the curly-haired darling of the family.

With my mother’s affirmation of my unwanted status—until she held me in her arms—and Four’s efforts to thwart anything special or precious about me from the time of my birth, I believed for more than fifty years that I did not deserve to be born.

I survived to adulthood barely. I held myself together with paper mache and scotch tape. Only those closest to me knew the depth of my self-loathing and insecurities. No wonder when my world crashed in 2001, I crumbled into a pile of rubble with no skills to cope or face the pandemonium that became my life.

Before you start thinking this book is a maudlin account of a sad life, read more. This book is about survival, and the places I traveled to find a better version of my original self.

I survived through writing and traveling, and the support of some loyal friends and family. I eventually found my place in the world. There are times when I regret that I didn’t handle things in a cooler and calmer manner, but I simply didn’t know how. I learned and lost and laughed, and then I let love triumph. If only I’d known it was that simple.

I learned to accept that we all have our path to travel in this life. People pass through and leave and some even come back again. It’s all supposed to happen exactly as it does, even though some of it is horribly tragic. Other times, there’s happiness and peace. It’s those moments I remember and seek.

I went to high school, college, married, and gave birth to a beautiful daughter. During the years of my first marriage, we traveled frequently around our new home in Florida, across the United States, and to Europe. However, the trips I took after the end of my first marriage brought the most profound changes to my life. The trips prior to that left indelible memories, but it is the trips from 2004-2009 that changed me.

My odyssey to myself began at the start of the new millennium and took me to places where I learned to accept myself and believe I deserved to be here. The darkness lifted at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, but the odyssey continues.

THE NEW MILLENNIUM

THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY began with the publication of my first book and the removal of one side of my thyroid.

It only got better and worse from there.

By 2001, I left my teaching career after seventeen years in the trenches of high school hell. I entered a new profession as a journalist, where almost immediately I won several awards for my writing. That’s the better part. Then on September 10, 2001, the brightness ended. A lunatic, once married to my nephew, murdered their two daughters, my great nieces, Candice and Kimberly Camburn.

Horrible nightmarish times began where I thought I could save everyone. Only I couldn’t. The only thing I could change was me, but that’s a little difficult when the paper mache and scotch tape façade begins to disintegrate.

More happened in the next year—more than anyone could possibly imagine—some of it good; some of it ghoulish. I picture myself during this time as continually falling in mud, scrambling around a bit, and then fighting to stand up.

My marriage to my first husband suffered, as did my emotional state. Through it all, I wrote. Then I started to travel, making major trips leading me on significant journeys to reclaim my life. Along the way, I saw some tremendous sights, and I came home with fresh insights. Each time, I reclaimed a little bit of my lost and confused soul as I began the journey to repairing myself, not back to the old me of days long gone, but to a new and improved self, as I began to choose the way I wanted to live my life.

The first journey came in 2004 when a