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Posted 2 years, 3 months ago in the early afternoon by oso
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve found myself walking around some foreign city, knowing neither the language nor the currency, and staring into the coupled conversations of comfortable coffeehouse confines. How’s that for alliteration? The steam on the windows, the flirtatious curled lips of young women and the puffed up chests of their suitors. Cigarettes, cocktails, cappuccinos: everything at a snail’s pace. And every time, without fail, I think to myself, ‘now why in the fuck don’t I do that more often back home?’
That’s part of traveling. A reminder to live slowly. To breath deep. To let go.
I’m here for the “Open Translation Tools 2007” conference. When I mentioned that to someone a couple days ago, their response was, “wow, that sounds wonkie.” Maybe so, but this is an incredible group of people all concerned with how a globalized world communicates. Some friends and acquaintances are here: Alice, Lena, Gunner, Ed, Brian. It will be good to hang out with them. Then there are many more people I’ve never met, but have long wanted to. I’m glad to have a chance to.
These past couple days I’ve been working almost non-stop, but this afternoon I was able to take a break for a few hours and walk around the city with some Coltrane in the headphones. Everywhere you go it seems that a blue tram is either in front of you or behind you. Here’s the requisite motion shot:
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. My first guess...
Because you would be fired to put it simply. If we want to live like Spaniards then we must move to Spain. If we want to live like Americans then we must work until we can’t. If we want to live like Mexicans then the question remains. “Later? or Later later?”
Travel is an addiction. And you, my friend, are a junkie. Not the functioning Of-course-I-can-quit-any-time addict. Nope, my man, you’re the hollow-cheeked lotus-eating kind. The far gone. The unredeemable.
I recognize the signs very well. Because I, too, was a user. So I know those highs: the enervating unfamiliar city, the excitement of the unintelligible, and the artificial promise of another self. And like all highs, they are temporary. So that’s why you start looking for them again.
Well of course I’m a travel addict. Silly sir. But I object 100% to your symptoms.
Enervated? Lacking in energy or vitality? Good god, I couldn’t think of a worse description of how I feel l when I travel. Right now, at this moment, I’m more full of energy and vitality than just about any other time in the past five years. New cities don’t enervate – they inspire acute observation, rhapsody, significance, passion. The real question is how to translate all that vitality into the everyday reality of ‘home life.’
And you were a journalist? It’s not what is unintelligible that is exciting, it’s making sense of it. It’s the process. Demystification. Understanding. Empathy. Communication where before none existed.
This has very little to do with travel. It’s part of being human. It’s called the new year resolution. “Next year I’m going to be healthier, slimmer, smarter, more organized, learn a new language.” Those desires/delusions (take your pick) are part of being human whether you’re a travel addict or not.
Fair enough, so when I travel I experience a heightened sense of consciousness. And, of course, I’d love to maintain that same heightened sense of consciousness while staying in one place. I haven’t found out how to do so yet, but I have a feeling that it has something to do with age. I’m 27, my friend. A young sprite.
You’re now in your (early?mid?late?) 30’s, a corporate lawyer, a father. It was great to meet you in person, you looked good and content.
But are you telling me you regret your travel-addicted 20’s? I doubt it. I’m pretty sure you’re happy about how you lived your 20’s and you’re happy about where you’re at now. I’m also pretty sure that 10 years down the road, so will I.
I’m glad we’ve established you’re an addict. Now we’re just dickering over how to describe the high.
The unfamiliar is enervating; it’s that exhaustion that gives all trips that slick, wicked edge. The unintelligible is exciting, in precisely the way you describe. And travel offers one thing your new year’s resolution does not, and that is escape.
But arguing how the high feels isn’t the point. And this isn’t an intervention, either, bud. I’m not trying to extract you from your opium den or the check-in line at SFO, as the case may be.
What I’m pressing at — and I admit I’m writing to touch a nerve — is to
ask whether all the mobility our modernity offers is an unmitigated good. (How’s that for alliteration?) Love and sex are great things. Addictions to love or sex?