Digging into my treasure chest

Note: I am participating in a seven-day blogging challenge, called the Write Tribe Festival of W0rds.  Write Tribe is an online community of bloggers that "urges you to write bravely." There are two things that are needed, according to the website, Write Tribe (website): a shared interest and a way to communicate. 

Today's blogging prompt is to write about a treasure that I have. I looked for gold and silver and precious jewels, but they were not there. Then, I dug into my treasure chest and found a few objects: a camera, a box of stones, a collection of journals, and a whole bunch of paintings. I also found some intangible objects: an imagination, curiosity, determination, and passion. I wanted to write about the treasure that glitters in the sunlight because it is golden, but I will have to settle for one of the intangible things: my curiosity.

Curiosity is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as being "an eager desire to know or learn about something." That has described me since I was a little kid. That eager desire has gotten me into some trouble because the way that I chose to know or learn about something was to take things apart. I had pieces of pens all over my room because I took them apart and lost the small objects that made the pens work. I was fascinated by people and what made them work but I couldn't take them apart like I could a pen. I was also too shy to ask them questions so I had to let my imagination take over. Later on, when I stopped being a fussy eater, my curiosity led me to taste just about anything that could be tasted. Sometimes, the food tasted good and, other times, oops.

My curiosity led to journalism school because I figured that I could get paid to be nosy. I could learn something about everything, which would be great because it would satisfy both my curiosity and my short attention span. 

After journalism school, I discovered that jobs were hard to come by and I had to do just about everything, in addition to journalism. As a freelance journalist, I've written about road reconstruction, toxic pollution, cancer survivors, artists, musicians, farmers, library directors, and more. Outside of journalism, I learned something about horticulture and became a gardener. I traveled to Guatemala and to Ecuador and I learned Spanish. When I traveled, I realized that wanderlust was a part of curiosity. It was the fascination of experiencing other cultures first hand. In Ecuador, I had the opportunity to stand on the equator, with one foot in the northern hemisphere and one foot in the southern hemisphere. I planted trees in Ecuador and I hope that I left something that is still growing and thriving.

So... today... this stream of consciousness... I need to bring me up to date because Ecuador was six years ago now. Today, I walked to the farmers market and then I went to Buffalo to visit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility, where there was a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the groundbreaking for the Erie Canal.

Black Rock Lock

View from the footbridge over the
Black Rock Lock

The facility is located at the Black Rock Lock. It was an engineering wonder when it was first built back more than 100 years ago by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers so that large ships could avoid the swift currents of the Niagara River. It replaced a much smaller lock that was built in 1833. That's how long it took for the Erie Canal to be built. Construction started in 1817 and was completed in 1833. Anyway, I'm going back to the Black Rock Lock in a few weeks for a more in-depth visit so come back to visit this blog.

Question of the day: What of your traits would you call a treasure?