it is true that we wear our travels on our faces and we carry stories with us like an endless journal. the places we have seen become like new tissue in our skin and we begin stories by telling the place before telling the time and date. out to lunch i went with a friend of mine today and i had good thoughts about what it means to be a traveler. meeting with other travelers and breaking bread with them proves to be not only dawning of new friendship but it also brings useful information about other countries which is much more practical than google or lonely planet. you get to break bread with a person who has actually lived somewhere else and in that conversation you really get to see what its like to experience that culture.
my boy had lived in taiwan for god knows how long. its cool to hear about taiwan because i never really had any interest in going there and places with that qualification usually turn out to be the most interesting places. when we travel like this we enter new places and start from the beginning. we do not speak the language but we have enough experience with people to walk into unfamiliar places to put ourselves in situations where language manifests inside of us. there are good tricks for this. go to a store and ask questions about everything. read newspapers, go to a religious service, find a girlfriend from that country, talk to bartenders (thats a good one).
and its funny to watch us interact and avoid comparing. the hardest part is not to apply cultures which you are used to upon the place you live now. so many times i've wished they speak spanish in turkey but its unheard of here. so its cool... my boy harvey lived in taiwan, jayson lived in bolivia for a while, kim has been all over turkey and i believe a bit of africa, homeboy greg lived in vanuatu for a year, yeliz lived all over europe, normal chris has been all over the place for the last few months and i believe he is the proud owner of a ticket to india after we get back from egypt. moreover the slew of people i have met in my travels have continued to circumvent planet earth in a humble and respectful way. in one way or another we are conquering this world peacefully without leaving any footprints. we move onward and share stories with each other sometimes crossing paths. its even come up that a person i've met in one country has crossed the sacred path of another person i've met in a different country.. thus there is a bless-ed connection.
its a strange life that i lead and sometimes i wonder if i've swam too deep to remember the what the surface is like. my only view into the world i once lived in is through the soulless void of god's internet and even though sometimes the right song brings me back i continue to look forward.
2010 is coming up.. i've completed my favorite year and in the bless-ed interconnectedness of things i find myself teleported to whiskey, scars and electric blankets. its going to be a slap around of existentially beautiful chaos next year and i am ready for it.
ps
dear trouble,
you are an old friend of mine and although we've had our differences you always seem to be there for me and you always lead me to really cool shit. i'll stop questioning you, i promise, i know you know these things better than i do and maybe i'll really understand what you are all about. alas, you are a close friend of mine and you are never a stranger. happy holidays, i'm going to egypt tomorrow so i guess i'll be seeing you when i get back (if not, of course in egypt).
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