Dear Camille,
For some reasons airports put Bob Dylan's song "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again". Perhaps it's the ludicrous things I see sometimes. Harried parents traveling with too tired kids who spin in circles saying "no" to the ground; a young man asleep like it's three in the morning when it's ten a.m. The song isn't about airports at all, but the ridiculousness of our culture, we look around us and think, "why do we do this?", and there is no explanation sometimes, we just do.
My recent trip to Wichita was a satisfying reminder of how much I've changed since I left in 2004. A concrete ending to my adolescence, and a satisfying reaquaintance with a past I was a little afraid to confront. There is a whole genre of coming home literature, like Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony", the story of a WWII vet returning to his reservation, unprepared for civilian life and alienated from his own culture. Throughout the story he's trying to grasp why he does what he does, where the emotion comes from, and how he can return to the place/person he was before the war.
A true journey is full circle, arriving at a destination different from the beginning, and aware of the process.
Journeys are interesting experiences indeed. Most are planned, a few are not. Even those which are planned can take on the most unique qualities, so as to become an "unplanned" trip. When we step outside our "usual," our "comfortable," we have the chance to hear and see things around us that a daily routine might muffle and obscure.
ReplyDeleteAh, literature--wondrous works. I remember the day you rolled up to 1412 9th Ave. #1, Oakland, CA. And since: SF State, Master's Degree, teacher extraordinaire, Japan, and now...India!