Travel Notes

anonymous | Fall 2022

I am a firm believer in the fact that anyone visiting a country for a period longer than a few days should have at least a cursory understanding of the native language. This is not a practical outlook to have if someone travels very frequently, so it would probably be more accurate to say that it’s just a personal philosophy. I’m a firm believer in the fact that I should understand all the places I set foot in before I get there. But then again, this isn’t practical either. The last time I was on a plane was four or five years ago, but I have been dragged (kicking and screaming, usually) to many places I didn’t understand since then. Sometimes, I stayed long enough and put enough of myself into a place to feel as if I belonged there (as if I was part of the scenery, like a poster on the wall or a light fixture towards the end of the fourth floor hallway). I wouldn’t be there forever, but for that moment, I was. And I didn’t need much else.

On the way to school the other day, I caught myself smirking at the way the tops of the taller buildings vanished into the fog. Embarrassingly, I even took a few pictures along my five minute walk. I’ve been taking a lot of pictures these days—the first one was a stupid-looking shot of my leg and the floor, right before my first class started. Then there were others: a box of sushi with a rice to filling ratio gone wrong, a van with at least two dozen pigeons perched on it near the train station, a desk covered in assorted doodles of buff men. I pull out my phone and commit them to memory, hoping that one day I’ll be able to look back and laugh at all the things that happened to me as I started college.

Last weekend, I visited my local library. We have a long history. When I was wheeled through its doors for the first time in my stroller, I must have been struck by how big everything was. Last weekend, I already knew where I was going—to the back, by the tables mostly full of older people reading the newspaper. To the top shelf on the left side, where the A’s are. There are two books waiting, wrapped in paper and fastened with a rubber band. I know the librarians at the front desk, although I don’t really speak to them. I know how to check out the book and I know to get a physical receipt instead of an emailed one. I know all of this already.

There is nothing of note here, and I like it best that way.

I don’t want the places I inhabit to seem interesting. I don’t want them to seem new or exciting. I want them to feel like home. But finding that feeling here is still a long way off.

In August, lost and confused, I wrote something along the lines of “I know I need to be patient. I know I just need to wait for the good things to come. But I don’t want to wait.” I didn’t want to flounder around, syllables of an unfamiliar tongue clunky in my mouth. I didn’t then, and I don’t now. A lot of things have changed since then (then seems like much, much longer than two months ago), but other things have not.

My deepest (and most unrealistic) fear is that they never will. That I will forever be stuck, jutting out from the wall at an odd angle, not quite knowing where to go or what to do or how to be. That fear is likely as irrational as one of the dark, one that I have as a result of watching people play too many horror games.

Still, it might not be.

In the end, we are right back to square one. We have not really learned any of the lessons that have been taught to us. There is only one thing we can rely on: the hope that, eventually, time will bring some sort of change with it.