...in fact, I am currently away from my desk...my bed...my home...and from everything with which I am comfortable and familiar.
Please leave a message...with the understanding I may not get back to you in a timely manner.
It occurred to me yesterday, as I was re-packing my bag (yes, I was packed several days early. Anal-retentiveness runs in my family. Don't judge.), that it has been almost exactly twenty-five years since my very first trip out of the country, while I was in college, on a choir tour of Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. It was magical and transformative for me, in the way travel always is: you get lost, you see things you never expected, and, invariably, you learn--about the world, but also about yourself, about what you will and will not tolerate, and that you will never be in control of everything, and THAT'S OK.
One of the memories that sticks with me is not about that trip itself (although there are certainly plenty of amazing memories!), but the flight home--specifically, during the New York-San Francisco leg of the trip. I was trapped in the window seat of a 747 with a Korean woman traveling with her two boys, one and three years old, in the two other seats in the row (to this day I do not understand how she was allowed to buy one ticket for two children...but, as usual, I digress). The younger one, bless him, mostly stayed asleep and quiescent the whole way home; the older one, however, was a nightmare--all over the plane (including stomping across my lap whenever he wanted to look out the window of the plane, which was approximately once every fifteen minutes), babbling loudly to whomever would (or wouldn't) listen. When seated, to release his excess energy he would either kick the seat in front of him, or randomly unleash piercing shrieks (presumably of joy) throughout the flight, while his mother steadfastly refused to either corral or correct him, blithely ignoring the icy stares directed her way by the other passengers.
After having been away from home for three long weeks, and awake for far too many hours, and not being a person naturally inclined to look generously on parents who abdicate their responsibilities--especially on a plane--but far too cowardly and tired to stand up and demand redress from the flight crew, it was all I could do to plug my ears as best I could with my headphones and stoically contemplate my impending sainthood (although, had I a better understanding of the justifiable homicide laws in my home country, things might have turned out very differently). It is not too much of a stretch, I think, to say that They Might Be Giants' "Flood" saved several lives that day, not least my own.
Something else that occurred to me is how much has changed in what I'm packing. I'm not bringing any more clothing than last time, I am sure, but for different reasons: in my impoverished student days, I simply didn't own enough clothing to overpack, even with bringing nearly everything I owned; now, I'm travel-wizened enough to know it isn't necessary to bring more than a few days' worth of clothing (although I will never match my friend Renee, who managed an entire two-and-a-half week trip with the equivalent of a tote bag and a checked bag the size of a cat carrier. I bow in awe of her packing mastery).
Another difference in my pack list--and one that boggles my mind...speaking of overpacking: on that first trip, I brought my Walkman (remember THOSE?), ten or twelve cassette tapes, two Radio Shack speakers that looked like desktop Sputnik models standing gray and conical on tripod legs, plus all the wires needed to connect them to the Walkman, PLUS batteries for both speakers and Walkman...in total, my 'gear' must have added a good ten pounds to my carrying weight. In addition, I had a small but decent snapshot camera that was pretty state of the art at that time with a dozen or so rolls of film, plus a list of addresses to whom I was to send postcards--which would take, if I was lucky, and dependent on where they were sent from, about four* to twelve** weeks--if ever***--to arrive.
*(Switzerland, Germany)
**(Italy)
***(again, Italy)
Only twenty-five years later--merely an eyeblink blip in the course of human history, really--I am carrying a small computer, about the size and weight of one of my cassette tapes from that first trip, that carries within it at least ten times the amount of music, along with speakers that are better than my Sputniks, not to mention a camera that takes far better pictures than the old camera did, and not just a list of a few names and addresses but the contact information of every person I know--plus, instead of postcards, I can use that same machine to send a message instantly to any one of those people--along with a picture; a real picture, taken in that moment, not just some stale stock image picked up from a revolving wire stand in some tourist trap gift shop lurking in a museum or hotel.
In addition, I can use it to pull up a map, deposit a check, work on my novel, or any number of things I haven't even discovered yet (it's a new phone. Some slack, please)...or, if I wish, I can just make a mundane phone call.
Plus, the battery lasts a hell of a lot longer than those Duracells in my speakers ever did.
It blows my mind sometimes how much can change, and how quickly.
Some things won't change--there will still be obnoxious children on overcrowded flights; I will learn how very little I am in control; and I will come home with images and experiences I did not have before--which is, of course, why we travel in the first place: not just to expand our sense of how big the world is and how much can change in an eyeblink, but to expand our sense of what is possible.
Oh-and one more thing that hasn't changed:
RM
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