I had dinner with Pat and Art...
earlier today at an Indian place (highly recommend the Chicken Madras with naan), and I laughed at the idea earlier that we could go there expecting to have the same sort of conversations we'd had in New York, on that park bench, with the streetlights and neon signs of the city keeping the inky darkness of an early winter evening away. I thought about our talks, of Pat's monologue with the slight gust tugging the yellow leaves from the tree and laying them at our feet like children. I thought about Juli's smile while she watched us wear our passions and obsessions and convictions on our sleeves for anyone passing by to throw darts at. I remember the faraway look in Art's eyes, that thousand-yard stare, as a college senior ready ready for a job as a consultant for a corporate firm became, in those instances, a reckless, starry-eyed kid again.
And I laughed because moments like those, little bubbles of God-time, those can't be replicated. They can't be forced, they can't be coaxed. Because then they become false and plastic. But we sat in our chairs in the Indian restaurant, and the conversation flowed like honey. Inevitably, we talked about AIESEC and traveling, and again I saw a glow suffuse Art's face.
Imagine you're on a shore, gazing at the Straits of Gibraltar, activity bustling in the port below. People scurrying over the wooden boards, lovers sharing one last moment before parting, a mother holding tightly to her rebellious child's hand as she carries another aboard the boat. Lives mingling, coming together, brushing shoulders for little bubbles of God-time, and the ferries line the port: one to Italy, one to Spain, another to France. And all you have are the shoes on your feet and the pack slung over your shoulder. Before you lies the chance to go wherever you wish, to see where the sun and wind take you, to move on impulse...
Art did that. He'd lived what people watching movies only dreamed about. He'd lived lives I'd thought were worlds away. And, talking about it with Pat and I, he made me want so desperately to do the same. To sit on a stool in a cafe after having not shaved for days of travel, staring out the window at the waves of heat that sat upon the sand, killing time, watching people, waiting for the bus.
You can look at a postcard. You can listen to a song. But you can never really feel, never really experience a place, until you've set foot on its soil, until your toes have wriggled in its sand, until your heels have clicked on its cobblestones. Because then, you are turning fantasy to reality. You are putting flesh on a theory, you are putting a face to an idea.
Like when I sat at a cafe by myself on a day when gray clouds sought to obscure the sun and heralded Parisian tears while little children played in the fallen leaves scattered throughout the Luxembourg Gardens. While I sat with my glass of scotch at my elbow, my pen blazing genius-fury across my notepad as I, the writer at work, did what I loved most.
Or like when the Mediterranean brushed around my ankles as I left footprints along the shores of Cannes, the setting sun gilding the waters, touching the rollerbladers on the deck, smiling at the Swedish students smoking on the rocky outcropping that looked like a finger pointing in the distance. And all is right with the world.
In that little Indian place on Howe Street, I felt as though I had traveled to Morocco, Paris, and the Riviera all within the span of two hours. And it was the greatest feeling in the world. To visit a place and come back, able to paint such a glorious tableau with your words that others will fight tooth and nail for that experience.
I believe Miriam Beard put it best...
"Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."
Sincerely,
Tochi
And I laughed because moments like those, little bubbles of God-time, those can't be replicated. They can't be forced, they can't be coaxed. Because then they become false and plastic. But we sat in our chairs in the Indian restaurant, and the conversation flowed like honey. Inevitably, we talked about AIESEC and traveling, and again I saw a glow suffuse Art's face.
Imagine you're on a shore, gazing at the Straits of Gibraltar, activity bustling in the port below. People scurrying over the wooden boards, lovers sharing one last moment before parting, a mother holding tightly to her rebellious child's hand as she carries another aboard the boat. Lives mingling, coming together, brushing shoulders for little bubbles of God-time, and the ferries line the port: one to Italy, one to Spain, another to France. And all you have are the shoes on your feet and the pack slung over your shoulder. Before you lies the chance to go wherever you wish, to see where the sun and wind take you, to move on impulse...
Art did that. He'd lived what people watching movies only dreamed about. He'd lived lives I'd thought were worlds away. And, talking about it with Pat and I, he made me want so desperately to do the same. To sit on a stool in a cafe after having not shaved for days of travel, staring out the window at the waves of heat that sat upon the sand, killing time, watching people, waiting for the bus.
You can look at a postcard. You can listen to a song. But you can never really feel, never really experience a place, until you've set foot on its soil, until your toes have wriggled in its sand, until your heels have clicked on its cobblestones. Because then, you are turning fantasy to reality. You are putting flesh on a theory, you are putting a face to an idea.
Like when I sat at a cafe by myself on a day when gray clouds sought to obscure the sun and heralded Parisian tears while little children played in the fallen leaves scattered throughout the Luxembourg Gardens. While I sat with my glass of scotch at my elbow, my pen blazing genius-fury across my notepad as I, the writer at work, did what I loved most.
Or like when the Mediterranean brushed around my ankles as I left footprints along the shores of Cannes, the setting sun gilding the waters, touching the rollerbladers on the deck, smiling at the Swedish students smoking on the rocky outcropping that looked like a finger pointing in the distance. And all is right with the world.
In that little Indian place on Howe Street, I felt as though I had traveled to Morocco, Paris, and the Riviera all within the span of two hours. And it was the greatest feeling in the world. To visit a place and come back, able to paint such a glorious tableau with your words that others will fight tooth and nail for that experience.
I believe Miriam Beard put it best...
"Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."
Sincerely,
Tochi