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Escape isn't morally wrong, is it?
I decided at a young age that I would travel—and probably live—abroad, when I was older. At the time, abroad meant anywhere but where I was from, and especially out of the country. I wanted to lose myself, initially, as travel writer Pico Iyer aptly wrote.[1]
From the vantage of my suburban hometown, getting away indexed an erudite combination of means, sagacity, and an anti-consumerist intellectual lifestyle. Interesting, well-read, and wise people, it seemed to me, traveled. They were not necessarily rich; but had the means to access something money couldn't buy. They could say, “when I was studying non-representational art in Isfahan,” or, “during the few years we lived in the Azores,” or, smoothing a fine dress, “picked this up in Paris.” My suburban hometown seemed riddled by a consumerist, car-dependent, individualistic habitus. Who could blame me for wanting more? Ah, the romance. The heroic tales. Journeys of transformation. And trains. Trains!
During the period of life when I did travel—and read a lot (another vector of transformation)—I began to wonder if my desire was morally wrong. If it, too, was the consequence of my social conditioning. What if seeking escape with travel was a predictable, bourgeois desire for people like me? How banal! I tried to diagnose my impulses. To name the fault lines and the arrangements of power that underpinned my sensibilities. Did I expect to change through a journey away because I unconsciously venerated the figure of the white male explorer? Was this entrapment my fate as the Americanized descendant of European immigrants, the outcome of my childhood reading habits, which were seeped in manifest destiny? Was I crass, or intrepid, to believe I might access intellectual high society through travel?
One hot Roman summer, I read Daisy Miller. My goodness was I gripped by terror. It was true. I, too, was but a trope in a larger narrative. An uninhibited, naive young American, living abroad. Thankfully, I was spared her fate.[2]
I've decided in middle age that the desire for travel is not the worst kind of bourgeois. The relief cast from retrospect is psychically enriching—and possibly more transformative than even excellent undergraduate seminar classes—barring those studied abroad. Imagine, studying global food trade regulation while sorting lentils on a carpeted floor. Rereading the myth of Artemis while in a lover's quarrel. Staying up late for serious discussion about the purchase of feminist theories to disrupt the specter of male violence or the unseen risks of a nuclear disaster. Drinking beetroot soda and palinka in someone else’s kitchen, telling jokes while the rain splatters on the terracotta roof. Here, we find ourselves.
Travel is the realization that living can be living otherwise. It's tracing veins to the beating hearts of humanity. Beetroot is a delicious drink. There are many faces of unfairness. Longing and loving are worlds we pass through, worlds that are simultaneous and smell different, multi-dimensional worlds. Existing is best being kind. You have to wait for the train.
Lately, I’ve been sensing an urgent desire to get away, in me, in others. “The world is too much with us,” that titular line from William Wordsworth[3] hangs in my mind. Is this a terrible thing? Is it morally wrong? I'm living in my hometown again, which—thanks to the distance that time has afforded—has been a comforting, familiar experience. But what's known has an uncanny hue, a subtle strangeness—even though we’ve gone nowhere.[4]
I've decided the desire to leave is a hope for reflection. Escapes are thresholds. In our curious times, what better way to register differences in self and society than to enroll in intentional retrospect about past travels?
For that inner journey, here's an opportunity:
Thank you for reading The Gift.
Yours,
Monika
The Gift
References
[1] “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves. And we travel, next, to find ourselves.” —Pico Iyer, 2020, see https://picoiyerjourneys.com/2000/03/18/why-we-travel/
[2] Daisy Miller is a fictional character in Henry James’ book of the same name. At the end of the story, she tragically died of malaria, "Roman fever,” which was endemic in Italy in the 19th century; there were approximately 15,000-20,000 deaths per year in the 20 million population. As of 1970, it's not endemic in Italy, thanks to much “integrated” effort in vector control and treatments. Learn more: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3340992/
[3] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us
[4] Once I read a story in Peter Eszterházy's book Celestial Harmonies, about an uncle who leaves but never leaves. I must look up the details, later.