Community - When the Ordinary Becomes New and Exotic 9-23-9

A Southwest Train near Salisbury

One of the great joys of travel is seeing ancient medieval buildings, bustling cities, marvels of engineering, and epic landscapes for the first time. There is a powerful sense of wonderment and enchantment that occurs only during these initial encounters. Perhaps this derives from coming to these new places loaded with a positive expectancy. Many of us will be forever travelling to new destinations, simply because we want to immerse ourselves in a place for the first time; over and over. There is some kind of delightful intoxication that comes from experience of the unfamiliar, novel, and exotic.

Arriving by ship in an unexplored city has to be one of the preeminent ways to experience this enthralling, even heady expectancy of something new. Many times this year I spent the evening before arriving in a port musing over a city map and wondering what treasures were within an hour’s walk of the docks. Speculation over what a foreign capital looks and feels like is a most delightful form of free imagination. Never once have I been disappointed in visits to fifty nations. The hundreds of cities I have been in are each an amazing self-contained universe with its own customs, landscapes, cultures, and histories.

Climbing the Eiffel Tower, taking off in a jet at sunrise, watching a volcano erupting at night and spewing glowing red lava down the slopes, traversing a glacier field on horseback, observing a missile launch, riding in a hot air balloon, wandering into St Stephan’s Cathedral in Vienna, circumnavigating the globe. These are all truly stupendous life events that were near epiphanies for me, yet I can never do them again for the first time. A sound byte from popular culture fairly well captures the sentiment that often drives us to the next thing, ‘Been there, done that, got the T-shirt”, implying that returning to a prior experience would be tepid, lukewarm, or watered down. There might be a bit of truth to this.

I recall making my maiden voyage through the Panama Canal in 1998. It had to be the most magical thing in the world to me; I could not get enough of it. Alas, after eight journeys through the canal, it became familiar, normal, and even a bit ordinary. After all it is just a big ditch filled in with water so that freighters can save huge amounts of time and money by avoiding long transits around South America. Or is it? Nothing about the Panama Canal changed during my series of visits. Only my role had changed - going as an enthusiast explorer during my first passage through the Gatung Locks and as a slightly jaded photographer my last journey; wondering what the Canal Authority did with all of the draconian tolls charged to my ship and hundreds of others like it. Perhaps I had come to know too much and had lost the innocence of childlike enchantment.

Recently, while roaming the winding medieval streets of Tallinn in Estonia I came upon an incredible structure that left me gawking like the accidental tourist I was. In front of me was the onion-domed wonder of the Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral. This sumptuous gilded and ornamented monument to creative genius had me spellbound. In its ornate, lavishly furnished interior I was able to instantly transition from tourist to pilgrim, able to immerse myself in what was nearly a numinous encounter. Yet, incredibly, the local residents consider this epic Cathedral to be an absolutely ordinary building with no meaningful history and hardly worthy of comment. The building is after all, only one hundred twenty years old in a town dating from the early 12th century. The locals have had one hundred twenty years to get used to the place. I had less than one hundred twenty minutes. It seemed that familiarity had rendered the exotic ordinary.

For ten days now I have been on an amazing journey to visit the world, granted by British Airways as the ultimate prize for an essay contest. I’ve been immersed in inconceivably grand experiences and have met some truly impressive and inspiring people. I’ve also eaten a lot of meals by myself. What I have not experienced since getting into my car to make a hurried journey to the first of many airports is hearing my name called out from the other side of the street, seeing a familiar face for the first time in a very long time, getting a smile of recognition, being asked for a hug.

Being alone in a vast city of twelve million for many days can present a certain kind of challenge. One is in very close physical proximity to all of these people, even touching in crowded subways and public venues, yet a vast chasm exists between we mutual strangers. There is a contented solitude one can experience in these times, but there remains risk for devolving into self pity and loneliness. Vigilance as to one’s true good fortune is imperative.

Having just embarked on a four-hour train ride to see something old and very familiar, it seems my real journey has just now begun; a journey back in time. After this pleasant time of contemplation in the English countryside I will alight onto a platform in a small village where I will hear my name called out from the other side of the street, see a familiar face for the first time in a very long time, get a smile of recognition, be asked for a hug. On that platform will be two good friends who are there simply because I am there, ones I have not seen in years. The concept of two dear friends waiting for me on that platform is simply … exotic.

Truly, one of the greatest joys in life is coming home, hearing my name called out from the other side of the street, seeing a familiar face for the first time in a very long time, getting a smile of recognition, being asked for a hug. Home just might be the most exotic place on earth. Just open your front door and look out. You might see true color for the first time. Just ask Dorothy and Toto.