A Little Month

Four weeks ago I boarded a plane, and cried as I watched the east coast disappear into the distance and under the clouds. Four weeks ago I got my first look at the apartment that would become my home. Four weeks ago I arrived ready (or not) to begin my next grand adventure. And yet, this grand adventure really began far more than four weeks ago. It began before apartment hunting, before graduate school applications, and even before I had any clue it had begun.

Come with me now on a journey through time and space, to my senior year of high school. Normally this is not a time that I look on with particularly fond memories, but it was in this time that I made decisions that would shape my future in ways I could only imagine. I would have said that my choices of college and major were entirely too influenced by a certain young man, except that even then, in the height of high school foolishness, a plan was afoot. Fast forward two years - spent in Physics labs, traveling across the country to present my research, and generally discovering exactly what I did not want to spend the rest of my life doing - to my sophomore year of college when, on a whim, I decided to take a class on Chaucer. It was then that the course of my academic career, and my life, changed.

I would spend the next two years carrying my Norton Anthology of English Literature to Modern Physics lectures and my Biophysics text book to poetry seminars. It was an insane life, but it was mine, and I loved it. I had discovered that the diversity of my passions and interests was something to embrace - though how Schrodinger and Shakespeare harmonized was not always clear. Until now.

The journey that began all those years ago, with all of its twists, turns, and tangents along the way, has lead me to where I arrived four weeks ago. If I have learnt anything in the last six years, it is that there is a plan and that I, sure as anything, am not in charge of it. Lord only knows where I will be in another six years, or even in another four weeks. For now, mine is not to question why, mine is but to do and dive into what is before me.

Of Arts and of Letters

Today I had the immense joy of rediscovering the beauty, and I would argue the art, of letter writing. In my experience, there is something deeply alienating about modern communication: the more connected we are through the Internet and social media, the more isolating and superficial our relationships seem to become. With a letter, there is a personal quality that transcends the content. It is something ineffable: something that lies not in the lines on the page but in the very page itself. The tactile experience of receiving a letter, seemingly so insignificant and ordinary, has the power to collapse 1,200 miles into something I can hold in my hand. 

Not only does a letter serve as a physical bridge between friends separated by great distance, it also serves as a lasting representation of the time, affection, thought, and sentiments of its author toward its recipient. In this representation and manifestation of something higher and outside itself, the once simple piece of paper becomes imbued with the artistic vision. It is no longer a piece of paper, it is a work of art. It is the medium through which one intellect quite literally communicates an idea to another intellect, but the multifaceted nature of that idea is brought to richer fruition by the physicality of the medium. A letter from a lover to his beloved, from a mother to her child, or from one friend to another, carries within it all the tenderness and immediacy of their relationship because it is a physical symbol of the unity of two persons. 

But couldn't the same thing be said about any form of written communication? I argue, no. The blog post you are reading, though it is written with affection for each of you and in the hope of offering some insight into my life and ruminations here in Minneapolis, remains impersonal because it does not breach the barrier of the physical. I mean in no way to cast aspersions on the forms of modern communication we all use everyday: they each, for the most part, have their uses and their values, and I will readily admit that I prefer texting when making plans and that I would be lost without FaceTime to see my family (and most especially my dog). However, the convenience with which we can send texts or make a FaceTime call in a sense impedes true communication and connection. Yes, it is a technological marvel that we can speak in real time to someone on the other side of the world and even be looking at them through a camera while we are on the treadmill or at the grocery store. But how much more meaningful is it to intentionally set aside the time and the effort to compose a letter, with care toward both form and content, phrasing and penmanship, without the conveniences of spellcheck or auto-formatting? To pour one's quality time in a tactile entity encapsulates, in my opinion, the most substantial gesture of affection possible from a distance. 

Upon Beginning a New Chapter

This, my first week in Minneapolis, has been a motley assortment of trials and successes. Perhaps more trials thus far than successes. My emotions have run the gambit from ecstatic joy at finding a welcome package waiting for me at my new apartment, to sheer terror whilst attempting to find my building's laundry room. In the last seven days I have moved approximately 700 pounds of stuff up two flights of stairs, assembled bookcases and dressers, and managed to resist all but two cutesy items in Target's homewares department (seriously, though, my salt and pepper shakers are adorable). 

The reality of living away from home -- actually living and not visiting or studying abroad -- is sinking in by degrees. I had all sorts of hopes and expectations about the newfound freedoms I would enjoy and the adventures I would relish in a new city. While there certainly has been some of that, my day to day and hour to hour life has looked rather more like distracting myself from the weight of homesickness that seems determined to set up residence in my subconscious. 

The kettle really boiled over on Saturday night when I decided to be brave and attend a contra dance in the south of the city. Going in I felt great: I had succeeded in using both the bus and the light rail, and had arrived early enough to have a pleasant conversation with a nice older gentleman and even run into a handful of Catholic missionaries out for an evening's entertainment. This feeling of lighthearted enjoyment lasted no longer than it took me to walk through the doors to the dance hall. Immediately I was hit with an overwhelming sensation of loss. It wasn't that the dance hall at home dwarfed this one in comparison or that the band consisted of misfit musicians, it was that I had not realized just how much of my heart I had left behind. This dance hall could have been as grand as a palace and the band could have been the President's Own, but they were not my home and they were not my family.

Each day, though, has been an opportunity to learn and to grow. Even the hard days. Especially the hard days. Saturday taught me that it is okay to be sad and to miss home, but to not let that stop me from being bold and trying new things (or old things in a new place, as the case may be). 

I can't say for certain when I will feel it, but I know this one thing to be true: there is a plan for all of this -- a plan to give me a hope and a future. 

Holding Pattern

In all of my traveling, one of the most frustrating experiences I have consistently faced is the time between the airplane arriving at the gate, and disembarking. The priorities of everyone else seem to have instantaneously switched from lets have a pleasant flight and perhaps even make polite small talk with my neighbors to this is my only chance to win a gold medal in wrestling and sprinting at the same time! And then there's me: waiting around, fully understanding that shoving people and jostling into the aisle won't actually get me off the plane any faster. When my turn to leave my seat does come, I always end up climbing up onto a seat to extricate my bag from the deepest depths of the overhead bins, looking and feeling more than a bit like a small child. Finally, I make it off the plane, and to my destination, typically all in one piece, and ready to meet whatever adventure may or may not be waiting for me.

There are 73 days standing between me and undergraduate commencement. We have been taxing down the runway since we touched down the afternoon of comprehensive exams in October, and the gate is in sight. And now it seems to be my turn to adopt the mentality of Push and shove, people! Push and shove! There are immensely important things to be done before the blessed May morning arrives (not to mention approximately 50 pages worth of papers to be written and 10 hours of exams to be taken), but all I can seem to think about is the life that begins May 17th. Granted, I have no earthly clue what that life will look like (perhaps I think I know what I want it to look like, but most of the time that life seems too good to be possible and certainly not in my immediate future), but it seems to be all I can think about. Life in a new city, a job I've been working toward for the last four years, new people, new experiences, new opportunities, new adventures. All bright and shiny (and, let's be honest, terrifying), and all out of reach. And so I wait. Patience is, after all, a virtue -- the lack of which I must oft confess. But I would be lying if I didn't also confess that all I want right now is to get my degree out from the overhead bins, get off this plane, and be at my destination. Wherever that may be.

I would like, Mr. Herrick, to gather my rosebuds, but I can't yet. Trust me, I know old time is still aflying, but it's just going to have to go on without me for a little while.

Comprehensive

Across the wide expanse of raging seas,

Across the gulf that separates the wise

From those who yearn to cleave to wisdom’s prize,

Who learn their human will to learn, to please,

Stands on the shore a solitary man,

Who beckons weary, trav’ling souls come hence,

Come all who will of madness make some sense,

And find your rest in beauty if you can.

And I, much wearied from the climb do cross,

To take my place among my learned peers,

With whom I arm my mind for battle, so

To count our inquiry’s gain and not its loss.

The war rages betwixt the work and tears,

‘Til Sapientia defeats the foe.

All told the journey’s end has come, at last:
My metal tested, and my trials passed.

The Wall Had it Coming

I am faced with a most conflicting sets of circumstances, and I find myself struggling: I have no right to be bored in such a place but that is just what I am. I am itching to begin my studies, to delve deeper and fly higher and perhaps crash harder than I thought possible, to have my work be just good enough and even still be torn to pieces. I have been blessed with such a life-changing experience, and every single aspect of my current situation ought to scream: this is amazing! And yet, there is no resounding echo of awe and wonder. I feel normal. Unchanged. At home.

Almost.

There is something different about the air here: it is piquant, saturated with anything and everything even the most avid dreamer could imagine desiring. Every corner yields to another unexplored path, and flood waters recede to unveil expanses of a city that has seen so much, and given so much. It is true that I have not felt an overwhelming sense of alteration since arriving, but I am beginning to feel the air saturating my bones.

And yet.

Góðan Daginn, Gamall Vinur

International travel is truly an experience unlike any other. It is a game. A waiting game. Waiting all day for it to be a reasonable time to leave for the airport. Waiting at the airport because you left home far too early. Waiting around in your stocking feet with dozens of other people, also in various stages of undress. Waiting to take your seat in the plane. Waiting to land. Waiting in the airport on layover, watching a boy band brushing their teeth at the gate.

Most of all, waiting for it to finally sink in that I am already hundreds of miles from home, with hundreds more to go.

The Last 48

In less than 48 I will be landed in a foreign country: a country whose history, cities and cultures I know as well as my own, but only from books, movies and the television. And from my own imagination. The fact that I will be there, actually there, has not become real to me yet. Perhaps it is because this has been my dream for so long, because I have, in my many make-believe adventures growing up, already been there so many times. This is the challenge of having a rich interior life. The challenge and the gift. In two day's time I will be trekking the streets of The City, and tracing in the footsteps of so many of my heroes. I will be walking the hallowed halls of the University where scores of scholars and artists have made their mark on society. I will be climbing hill and mountain to stand where freedom fighters once made their stand. These are things I've done a thousand times before, and now I will do them for real.

But the clock is ticking. There are a million last minute details and a million loose ends to tie down. Or are there? I've packed and repacked my bag a half dozen times, just as I did as a five year old first starting kindergarden. I've made spreadsheets and checklists, and yet I still feel utterly unprepared. And perhaps that's alright.

Maybe in the end all you really need is a thing like a plan.

Another Self

My three best friends and I were inseparable growing up. Everywhere I went, they went. I can hardly think of a single adventure I had as a small child without these three friends in tow. We each had our own personalities that blended seamlessly to make an unstoppable team. Martin was the oldest and took care of the rest of us. Dave was my age and was constantly getting into and creating all kinds of trouble. John was the baby of the group, and followed us blindly into every crazy adventure. And I was the fearless leader, for good or ill.

Martin, Dave and John were, hands down, my best friends growing up, and it didn't bother me at all that I was the only person who could see them.

Don't get me wrong, I had plenty of friends whom I had not invented, but that did not make them any more or less "real" than Martin, Dave and John. The thing about these so-called imaginary friends is that they were the perfect reflection of those qualities in myself that I would grow up looking for in my future "real life" friends. Imaginary friends and make-believe worlds are not harbingers of some dormant mental instability. They are a promise that, perhaps, one day we might meet someone new or travel to a new place and recognize a little bit of ourselves in the experience.

The Human Element

The angle of the incident light equals the angle of the resultant light. The color perceived is the total spectrum minus the absorbed wavelengths. The focal length is the inverse sum of object and image distances.

These are just a few of the basic properties that govern the way in which we are able to see our world. And yet there is so much more than these physical phenomena that occur when one watches a sun-set, inspects an ant in a magnifying glass or looks in the mirror. There is also the sense of the utter vastness of life and our own relative puniness one feels when faced with a horizon painted in every color imaginable, the weight of our own responsibilities when we truly see the small and vulnerable, and our own image staring back at us in the glass. This extracted element of the human perspective cannot be explained by the laws of physics, but is just as universal as any of Maxwell's equations.

Connecting to the world in a metaphysical way is part of the human experience, and is what drives many of our deepest desires. The desire to love and to be loved is rooted in our recognition that there is some good in this world, in others and in ourselves, and the desire to share in that goodness with others. The heart's quest to find and appreciate truth, beauty and goodness is the inspiration for adventure of all kinds, whether it is in the pages of a novel or in a far off land.

Imagine a world where a high-five was merely an application of Newton's second law of motion, where music's sole purpose was the study of Fourier wave function transforms, and where the beauty of a rose was simply a sign of healthy photosynthesis. While these physical properties are all an integral part of the world in which we live, they are not the sum total of our experience in this world. The natural phenomena will continue ad nauseum, but without engaging in the uniquely human experience of life we will miss out on one of our most basic and universal callings: to seek out Truth, Beauty and Goodness in every place where it is to be found.

The Cost of Priceless

Trans-Atlantic plane tickets: $953

Rental car with international driver's license: $322

Convertible duffle/backpack: $78

Finally taking the trip you have dreamed about for years: Priceless.

Or is it?

Whenever one branches out and tries something new there are risks involved. Weighing the cost and the payoff of any venture is key to its success and world travel seems to me to be no different. Yes, there are areas of the world where the physical danger is a very real concern due to the civil, political and religious upheaval much of the world is suffering, but one also takes risks when travelling to less violent parts of the world. These risks are not so much concerned with bodily harm or hazards of life and limb, but rather of expectation.

There is a lot of dreaming that happens in the early stages of the planning of a trip. Expectations run high and there is a real danger that the place one is excited to visit exists more in his or her imagination than in reality. It is incredibly easy to invent a world that is prefect, where every detail is exactly how we would have fashioned it, and where everything goes according to plan, and then to superimpose this image onto the places on our itinerary. But when we get there we will have no one to blame but ourself when our destination turns out to be just as real and imperfect as the places we left behind. It's necessary, therefore, to lay down the picture of the destination that's been painted in our own imaginations by films and tourist advertisements, and allow ourselves to board the plane with minds completely open, no less excited for what is in store. That is the price of travel.

It is by being expectant of nothing more than the chance to immerse oneself in the culture and life of a place, by taking every aspect of the journey (not just the destination) for what it is, by rolling with the punches thrown by weather and public transit, and by glorying in the everyday triumphs seen anew in a new setting, that we will be justified in putting a pin in our map. Anything else would be cheating.

Into the Unknown

I may or may not have stolen a guidebook from a friend’s bedroom bookshelf the other day. Paging through it on the train this morning something began to dawn on me, an idea that has been creeping in the back of my mind for some time now.

People say that a fear of the dark is really just the fear of The Unknown. But isn’t The Unknown what makes adventure so enticing? So many of the variables in our day-to-day lives have become constants that we can predict and control. Just about everything, from the route we drive to Church, to what we pack for lunch, to how we brush our teeth has become nigh on instinctual. Yet throw an unexpected change into the routine and it’s a whole different picture. It only takes one roadblock to send you are driving through neighborhoods previously uncharted by your phone’s GPS, and before you know it you’ve seen a whole new side of your town that you thought you new so well. It doesn’t take much to have an adventure, and most people would welcome the, albeit short, escape from the everyday (even if it’s in our own backyard).

No matter where one travels, there will be sleepy neighborhoods, industrial towns, and bustling cities. Their sizes, shapes, colors, sounds and smells may be vastly different from one another but they all have one thing in common: they are home to the day-to-day life of someone, perhaps not so different from ourselves. Recently I was looking at pictures from a small, rural town on the Isle of Skye. At first I was struck by the amazing beauty of the landscape and the quaint homes and shops--even the filling station looked cozy. And then I began to realize that this small town wasn’t too unlike the dozens of small towns I drive past every summer in rural Virginia. What makes this town on Skye so attractive, then, if it is so like these other familiar towns? Because it isn’t these other towns. Because I would have to take a plane, a train a bus and a ferry to visit this town. Neither one is any better or worse than the other. It is simply because as familiar as it looks on Google Earth, the town on Skye is completely, beautifully, and beguilingly new.

There is a thin line that lies just outside our front step: on this side is Home, on the far side is The Unknown.  

Prologue to a Journey

I haven’t made a single plan. No tickets have been bought; no rooms have been reserved. I don’t even have a passport. Yet here I am writing a travel blog about a trip that is nearly a year away.

Kids have the right idea. Escaping the everyday into a reality that is just as real as the one we see and yet completely their own. A kid growing up in the 1990’s in Virginia can, in the blink of an eye, be transported anywhere and become anyone. That is the beauty, the magic of imagination. It’s a child’s ability to turn a straw into a scalpel and a hobbyhorse into a stallion, to take an inch and run a mile a minute into a land of story of their own making. It’s no wonder children can never seem to sit still. And yet as we grow up we seem to lose that sense of wonder and excitement, of boundless creativity.  We become content to settle into routine and let the world around us dictate the reality we perceive, instead of going out and creating a world we actually want to live in.

What does this have to do with travel? It all starts with a dream and a desire: a dream of half-remembered, half-invented worlds and the desire to find them again.