Traveling... From "I Know" to "I Wonder..."

It’s time to let go of “I know,” my yoga teacher said this week, and come instead to the place of “I wonder.”

I’ve been thinking about this as I prepare for my first trip to Patagonia, in Chile.

There is everything I don’t know about it.

I don’t know what should go into my suitcase as I pack. What jacket? What boots? What layers of clothes? What power cables?

I don’t know the intangible things, either. What to read? What maps to study? What history to learn? How do grapes grow, anyway, in a sub-Arctic climate?

It’s an exercise in humility, this not-knowing.

It’s a lot of disjointed phrases, and their interrogative endings.

But what if all those question marks turned into ellipses?

Let’s say “?” became “…”

Let’s say, too, that “know” became “wonder” in my sentences tonight and tomorrow night as I finish packing.

Hmm. Let me give that a try...

I know that grapes grow in a sub-Arctic climate.

Or, better, I wonder that grapes grow in a sub-Arctic climate…

I know that I’ll be traveling by boat this weekend from vineyard to vineyard.

Or, better, I wonder that I’ll be traveling by boat this weekend from vineyard to vineyard…

Somewhere in the shift from “know” to “wonder,” my head as well as my suitcase starts to feel prepared.