Cheese mites live with greatness.

You set a lovely, crusty cylinder of Stilton on the counter. It warms gently. You lightly brush the bits of brown dust that have fallen from it into a tiny pile, and you go about your work. Some minutes later, you notice that the small pile of brown dust has begun to creep. It is alive! You have discovered cheese mites.

I have looked closely at them with a magnifying glass, and, well, I prefer not to. I prefer to imagine them with hardworking, earnest faces, laboring to create the pitted rind that tells you, the cheese lover, that this is an old and elegant cheese. For their labors, they are not much rewarded. Some people eat them--I have. But, do they ever get to travel!

And, now, so do I. Soon, I will be off to see many great things, and to be part of the great creeping dust of travelers who are brushed aside or--let's hope not--eaten alive by the great things we are drawn to see. I'll be traveling sort of low to the ground, hoping to find the people who do old things in old ways, and to talk my way into barns and kitchens, while never missing a chance to see the things I've only seen in pictures before. Hey, I think the cheese mites were peeking out from beneath their bandages when they sailed past the Statue of Liberty.

Cheese mites travel light. Food is everywhere, and clothes are barely necessary.