On Travel

There is a concrete front porch, where I would sit as a child, swing my legs and imagine the world past my driveway. For twenty-one years I slowly eroded the borders that fenced off my reality from the world at-large. As these invisible lines faded from my vision, the world grew by leaps and bounds. My imagination, which up this point had been lauded for its creative spirit and also condemned for its tireless roaming, began to meet its match in the world around me. The great cities I had imagined began to grow ever more impressive, ever more real, as I learned why these places existed and who had built them.

So, I did wander, slowly at first, then picking up steam. Each place I would go, inside of America at first, then Europe, Asia and finally Africa, would untie these tethers on my mind. Europe taught me that order is not owned, that reason and growth come together where sturdy foundations were laid. In Russia, I learned that where crossroads meet things are more likely to come together than segregate. In Africa, I learned that there are problems that are mine, and problems which are not.

Thomas Jefferson said, “One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more". This had always been my guide, that I could find within myself the power to understand the things I encounter. My imagination, unhindered by trappings of home and company, could digest this world and thus my eyes, ears, and stomach devoured it. Each meal, monument, and new word I encountered took away from me as much as it gave. It vanquished the feeling that somewhere there was a space where I could understand the meanings of everything, that in this small place the question of comprehension would be ended. It gave to me the great gift that imagination could be put work in creating substance, that a language or a building was created first by the idea of it, that it was thought of by person like myself and then created by person like myself.

I loved in France for few summers, learning the sensuousness of life on a new concrete porch in the heart of Provence. In France, if you let them, epiphanies can happen all the time. The slow daily repetition of French life gives you room to discover new parts of the day, of your tongue, of the spectrum of colors. It becomes hard to believe that tens of thousands of Nazi's poured over a hill that you sit at the base of and drain your glass of wine, but in this old land, thankfully, history is undeniable.

Returning home from a trip abroad is much like waking from a dream. As you drowsily deplane you find yourself looking back through the cabin door, thinking that the Mediterranean is just a few steps on the other side. And that is when the tears come. That the world is so large is its greatest crime. Anthony Bourdain once said, "something worth seeing always involves a steep incline." Returning home, especially to the flat Midwest, reminds you that life is farther away only for some, that the places you visit are always a home for someone else, with a porch and a boy sitting on it dreaming of far off lands.

Humanista