This is my place for posting musings, opinions, insights, baloney, poetry, and anything else I feel like putting here. The theme of the moment is "Travel", something I have done my entire life.
"Travel is not just seeing the new; it is also leaving behind. Not just opening doors; also closing them behind you, never to return. But the place you have left forever is always there for you to see whenever you shut your eyes. And the cities you see most clearly at night are the cities you have left and will never see again."
Jan Myrdal, The Silk Road, Random House 1980
In all of my travel, the most incomprehensible citizen of any place, to me, is the one who has lived, with all his family, for generations, in one place. I have no real experience with the concept of 'hometown', and the sense of belonging to a particular community or culture. For the first time in my life, I have lived for a number of years in a small town, and have seen some of the bonds and familiarity that the families who have lived for generations here enjoy. Sometimes, I envy that sense of belonging, and what I see as the comfort of being an accepted 'part' of the community, and at other times, I find a stifling conformity and near-sightedness that makes me appreciate all of the horizons I have known. One day, a woman in her 70's came into my Studio, browsing the photos, commenting on people in them that she knew, pausing at the ones she didn't, remarking that the county was 'full of strangers these days'. She asked who owned the building I was in, and hearing the name said 'must be new, I don't know them'. I mentioned that from what I knew, they had owned the building for more than 20 years (which means they had been there a long time, by my kind of reckoning), and she replied 'my family came to this county in 1868, we been here ever since'. Her dismissal of a 20 year resident as 'new' left me amused, as having only been in the area 5 years at that time, I imagined she would be surprised that I was even in the phone book. The woman, to me, gave the impression of being a person with limited education and little interest or knowledge of the world past the border of the county, and my thought was that the family had simply been in one place for a very long time, and taking some kind of credit or pride in that feat was unfathomable to me.
The first place I lived, when my father retired from the service, was a bedroom community less than 20 years old, without a 'downtown', just a plaza, as the emerging malls were called then. As new sections of the town were built, there was a constant flow of 'new' kids in the school, so it wasn't much of a novelty to the students, and attracted little harassment. After a couple weeks, most people found a circle of friends easily. That's as close to a hometown as I have, but I feel no sentimental longing for it, as it has changed a great deal, and isn't a pleasant place any longer. Besides, I could count on one hand the number of people I knew from years ago that still live there.
I joined the navy after a few years of fiddling around with college, ostensibly for an opportunity to get some training in a field I was interested in (photography), and get a paycheck at the same time. I think I was also ready to move on, and I felt there was nothing to tie me to that place except my parents. I was quite fortunate that my first duty assignment after training was to Hawaii, a shore duty billet. Many of my friends went to sea duty assignments, a realllllllll bummer for very junior enlisted people. So, there I was, in Paradise, had a car to hot rod, money in my pocket (for a few days, anyway), and a wonderful place to be outdoors. I have some wonderful memories of times spent with friends on the beaches and in the mountains, and think it would be nice to have some of those times again. But I think the line in the quote about closing a door, never to return, means more than just not going back to a location. It's about change, the change wrought by time, age, and experience: if you return to a place, expect it to be different; after all, you must certainly be different. If you expect to relive the past, I think you will be disappointed. During my assignment on the Saratoga, I visited more places than ever, although mostly for only a few days at a time. Some of the ports we returned to several times, and my very favorite place of all was the Spanish island of Majorca. This is one of the premiere playgrounds for the very rich of Europe, as well as a very popular vacation spot for the 'regular' people. I enjoyed the carefree atmosphere of the island, and found the Spanish people to be warm and of good humor. The beach towns are filled with theme pubs representing the many nations that sent visitors to the island: Brit, Irish, Scot, German, and even American country-western style bars and pubs abound. It was interesting that the people flocked to pubs that provided a familiar surrounding in a place far from their own homes, I suppose they really just wanted to be in a place with great weather, but still feel at home. I imagine some Brits went to German pubs, and some Germans went to Irish pubs, but generally, it appeared that they stayed apart, and I wonder if many at all even stepped into a real Spanish restaurant. That's what the part about 'leaving behind' is about: to grow from travel, I think you must leave your world behind, and try to experience the world of the people whose city you are in.
Returning to Majorca is one of my favorite daydreams, and one I hope will come true one day. Perhaps my vision of that place is so clear because the part of the quote about the 'cities you see most clearly' is true. It may be that I will never go there again, but if I do, it won't be to relive past times, but to make new experiences to enjoy. And I think I will continue to look for opportunity to travel, if only to have a new horizon to see, and then be able to return to the comfort of home, wherever I make it.
6/21/98
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