Singular Journeys

h/t/ to bro D for the photo.

Valentine's Day came and went. Two very long plane rides, a night in one of the most romantic cities of the world. The sights and sounds of something so different than my home state. I'm still feeling fairly out of it but the conference was important and I figure with meds and sleep I'll be just fine. For now, a post from a while back that I hope you will enjoy.
-------------

I guess the wandering spirit runs in my blood, passed on my from Air Force father to me. Seems like ever since I got a control yoke in my hand I've been wandering across miles of land . . . across rivers and towns. My Mom would have preferred I marry a hometown boy and stay in the tiny town in which I was raised, but once I tasted adventure, I was born into that gypsy life and have never really known another.

St. Expurey said "he who would travel happily must travel light". And this adventurer did travel light, based across the US, with a short stint as a contractor in the U.K. I remember those early years, I remember not just the travel, the airplanes themselves , but the feel of the starched uniform shirt I wore, the smell of a crewman's aftershave (which thank heavens wasn't Brut). It seems as if all my early years were reflected in the window of those moving airplanes. I see my reflection, my past, through bug sprayed glass that tints the world bright.

The airplane, the destination and the years changed, as did the landscape of my career, but some thing things never changed. Days in an airplane traveling far. Miles and hours spent watching the landscape, silver grain elevators, red winged birds, mountains formed of ice and fluid need, and rivers without borders, all blending into a bright diorama of life racing past. The world looks different from above, clouds massive and dark, looming up like a target in a gun sight, looking twice the size of ordinary man.

I have spent a quarter of my life it seems on the way somewhere. I have watched a hundred cumulus clouds erupt, mass assassination of mayflies and the disappearance of a slice of cherry pie at a tiny airport diner and the journey was only beginning.



Yesterdays journey was such an adventure. The ride to the hotel was something to remember, in and of itself. A shuttle service, stopping at several hotels on the way. The driver, sullen and demonstrating why driving was his second language. You know how when most people drive, certainly professional drivers, they brake using an increase in pressure on the brake pedal so as to come to a smooth stop. Not Mr. Shuttle. The only brake technique he used was to stomp on the brake, let up, let the car roll, stomp again. It would take four or five of these stomps to equal one normal braking action. No traffic, heavy traffic, it made no difference. I started to feel like a bobble head doll and the 25 dollars I saved over a taxi was starting to look like one of those small decisions that has great, oversized repercussions. But perhaps I should have been more patient. I guess it was hard to concentrate on braking when one is texting while driving in heavy traffic.

I simply made sure my seatbelt was fastened and then bent down as if into a stiff wind, horns of the impatient exploding into the rain-split asphalt that opened and closed with opportunity. Like all traffic in big cities, we carried on, sharp with speed, and then trickling to a standstill, the road dipping into the fog, like a hand cleaving water, the headlights showing the grey bulk of streams of cars coming down the hill like rain.

When the last guest got off and it was just me, he quit texting and had a series of increasingly heated exchanges in his mother tongue with his dispatcher about how he only got 47 US dollars in fares for this trip and he wanted to get a number one spot when he got back to the airport. (Actually, sir, you got 68 dollars in fares, one that you did not log and pocketed. I notice things like that.) The arguing got more heated. I am not fluent in languages. I, at best, can listen and relate small things in a number of languages that come in handy, Russian, Chinese, Farsi, just enough to know when it's a good time to get out of Dodge or when happy hour is almost over. It comes in handy, the knowing, the looking, I think, as I catch quick glimpses of other drivers in the failing sunlight, faces fixed and grim as they fought to get upstream.

The van driver still yelling into the phone while almost whacking several people on bicycles, we finally stopped in front of my hotel. I paid him the fare plus an 18 percent tip. He did NOT look happy, expecting much more from the American Redhead in nice clothes.

He muttered something under his breath about what he had to do to get a big tip, and I replied -

Вам надо научиться использовать торможения.

He was still standing there, mouth agape when I went up to my suite.

But I was here. The hotel bulked long and dark against the city sky, but inside was golden warmth, a bite of fresh apple, a much needed bottle of water. Sitting still for a minute took care of the aching neck and soon it was time to meet my partner from international sneaky service, a dinner of fresh fish, course bread fresh from the oven and wine. Perhaps because of the day, the waiter bringing me the biggest strawberry I'd ever seen, dipped in chocolate.

After a short walk back to the hotel, my partner making sure I got to my room safely, I made a phone call to a loved one, wanting to let them know I was in and safe. My family always worries when I'm on the road, as do friends, and I try and keep in touch. Then I took a long bath in a tub so deep you could hide a Mastodon in it and slept until it was 6:30 in the morning. Unfortunatley it was 6:30 in the morning Eastern time, not where I was at.

By choice or not, travel is part of the job. But travel brings something to you that people who live in the insular world of their home town their whole lives may miss. It pushes your boundaries. When you travel, you can become invisible, if that is what you choose. I like that. I like to be the quiet observer. Walking alone along the edge of another ocean, as it stretches away into space with its illusion of freedom. Strolling through the celestial hush of a square that has seen generation after generation, the sun glinting off marble where the monotonous rain has washed it bright. What stories would that old building tell, what makes these people who they are?

You don't have to understand the language that is spoken, only the language of the streets, the scents, the stone. Without understanding a word around you the language becomes simply a musical background for watching the water flow onto the shore or a leaf blowing in the wind, calling nothing from you.


Certainly there is the work, for that is what you are charged to do here. But afterwards, the time is your own. No laundry or chores, bills or demands of your time. No one cares if you vacuumed the carpet, or if you put on lipstick or checked your voice mail. You become a godlike creature of choice, free to visit stately buildings, savor a cup of coffee and a pastry or just walk. You're open, if only for a short time, as if a child, to receive all of the world, not just your own. It is all there for the taking, multicolored flowers in bright density, the smell of fresh bread baking, laid out like fabric on the ground which you pick up and wrap around you, drawing in breath through the scented cloth. This fabric, this essence of a place, that contains both the dead and the living, the blooms of lush flower, the decay of a building, the smells that are both the death and the birth of a city. You are a historian, you are a hunter free to explore and seek and find, and then return home bringing memories to lay on your doorstep.

The suitcase is open on a simple wood stand. It is empty, but in it there is so much, the smell of crushed sage as I bounce across the desert in a jeep, the wood smoked burnt woods of autumn, the smell that is untouched ground after a rain, the rich earth scent of something being lit that has long been cold.The suitcase is empty, but it is not. It will be packed with a smile, and if I survive the scary portion of the journey, the van ride to the airport, there is no telling what stories it will bring back.