...besides having no Kat, no Lemur, no Andrew, no Space City of a Thousand Teas, no Rocky Horror cast, and no decent kink community...
1.) The local Walgreens does not have any alcohol, and more importantly,
2.) The local Walgreens does not have any Barack Obama books.
OMG OH NOES! I'll have to go to the bookstore to buy Dreams from my Father (which I've heard is much better than the one I have, The Audacity of Hope). How bizarre!
(There are also no Obama cutting boards.)
Thursday, November 13, 2008
A Rainstorm: A short story
A Rainstorm
He stepped out onto the porch and found her, finally.
Helena was standing there, in the pouring rain, her red hair drenched and her curls matted against her back and cheeks as raindrop after raindrop pelted her face, arms, neck, shoulders, hands, legs. Her eyes were closed, and her arms were spread away from her gently, palms facing up and fingers curled towards the sky.
“Helena?” Kenneth called. Her white cotton blouse was sticking against her like a second skin and her jeans were several shades darker than they were when dry. “You should come inside. You’ll become ill.”
“I won’t become ill,” she told him, her mouth widening into a smile of pure joy as her eyes remained closed.
“You can’t know that,” he told her sternly. “You need to be careful now, remember?”
This had become an old argument by now, and he waited for the usual reply—that she couldn’t live life afraid of everything, that locking herself in a safe little box was worse than any fate that might result from failing to do so—but to his surprise, this time, she simply said nothing.
“What are you doing out there, anyway?” he tried again.
She took several deep, reverent breaths. “Being,” she answered.
He never quite knew what to do when she entered this sort of flight of fancy.
“You can ‘be’ just as well inside,” he offered.
She lifted her eyelashes, and as she looked at him her eyes twinkled, as though she knew some delicious secret that he did not.
“Yes, I can,” she agreed, but she made no move to step out of the rain.
Kenneth wished that he knew how to reason with her.
Helena held out her hand to him invitingly. “Come and join me.”
He shook his head. “I have no intention of getting soaked to the bone. This is madness. Please come inside.”
Helena lowered her voice conspiratorially. “If you let it, the rain will whisper the secrets of life, of love, of pleasure and pain onto your skin, and it will sink into your soul.”
He wondered, with a sudden pang of alarm, if perhaps Helena had lost her tender grip on reality, had finally gone insane.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” he asked.
She laughed a tinkling wind chime in a leisurely summer breeze. “I’m better than okay. I’m better than amazing. I’m not crazy, Kenneth, I promise. I think maybe I’m saner than I’ve ever been before. Everything’s clear now. I can’t believe how simple it is. I understand.”
“What do you understand, then?” he asked.
Her eyes shone and she beckoned to him. “Come here with me and I’ll tell you,” she whispered, so softly that he could barely hear her voice over the roar of the rain on the roof and the wooden deck.
He reluctantly stepped through the doorway into the downpour. She took his hand and squeezed it. “It’s going to be okay,” she promised him. “We don’t have to worry anymore.”
“So you’ve decided what you’re going to do?” he asked as he suppressed a slight shiver. Even in the tropics, the air was chilly during a storm.
She giggled and shook her head. One of the curls held back in her hairclip fell past her shoulder. For some reason, Kenneth found himself transfixed by that curl, and he focused his eyes on it instead of on the woman in front of him. Despite the heavy rain, the lock of hair was dripping slowly, almost methodically. It reminded him of the hospital room, of the IV.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
His own hair had been thoroughly pounded by the rain by now, and it stuck to his forehead and neck as he felt water trickling down his ear.
“But you said everything was clear,” he reminded her. “You must know what you’re going to do.”
“That’s just it!” she cried, grabbing his other hand as well. “You see now, don’t you? You feel it too. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do, or where I’m going to go, or what’s going to happen next. It could be anything. Isn’t it beautiful?”
She leaned in closer to him as she spoke. Her hands tightened around his, and when she looked into his eyes, she was so radiant, her eyes were so filled with the conviction that whatever she felt was the answer, that shining beacon of universal meaning they’d been searching for, that Kenneth did not have the heart to tell her that all he felt was cold, and wet, and rained upon.
He stepped out onto the porch and found her, finally.
Helena was standing there, in the pouring rain, her red hair drenched and her curls matted against her back and cheeks as raindrop after raindrop pelted her face, arms, neck, shoulders, hands, legs. Her eyes were closed, and her arms were spread away from her gently, palms facing up and fingers curled towards the sky.
“Helena?” Kenneth called. Her white cotton blouse was sticking against her like a second skin and her jeans were several shades darker than they were when dry. “You should come inside. You’ll become ill.”
“I won’t become ill,” she told him, her mouth widening into a smile of pure joy as her eyes remained closed.
“You can’t know that,” he told her sternly. “You need to be careful now, remember?”
This had become an old argument by now, and he waited for the usual reply—that she couldn’t live life afraid of everything, that locking herself in a safe little box was worse than any fate that might result from failing to do so—but to his surprise, this time, she simply said nothing.
“What are you doing out there, anyway?” he tried again.
She took several deep, reverent breaths. “Being,” she answered.
He never quite knew what to do when she entered this sort of flight of fancy.
“You can ‘be’ just as well inside,” he offered.
She lifted her eyelashes, and as she looked at him her eyes twinkled, as though she knew some delicious secret that he did not.
“Yes, I can,” she agreed, but she made no move to step out of the rain.
Kenneth wished that he knew how to reason with her.
Helena held out her hand to him invitingly. “Come and join me.”
He shook his head. “I have no intention of getting soaked to the bone. This is madness. Please come inside.”
Helena lowered her voice conspiratorially. “If you let it, the rain will whisper the secrets of life, of love, of pleasure and pain onto your skin, and it will sink into your soul.”
He wondered, with a sudden pang of alarm, if perhaps Helena had lost her tender grip on reality, had finally gone insane.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” he asked.
She laughed a tinkling wind chime in a leisurely summer breeze. “I’m better than okay. I’m better than amazing. I’m not crazy, Kenneth, I promise. I think maybe I’m saner than I’ve ever been before. Everything’s clear now. I can’t believe how simple it is. I understand.”
“What do you understand, then?” he asked.
Her eyes shone and she beckoned to him. “Come here with me and I’ll tell you,” she whispered, so softly that he could barely hear her voice over the roar of the rain on the roof and the wooden deck.
He reluctantly stepped through the doorway into the downpour. She took his hand and squeezed it. “It’s going to be okay,” she promised him. “We don’t have to worry anymore.”
“So you’ve decided what you’re going to do?” he asked as he suppressed a slight shiver. Even in the tropics, the air was chilly during a storm.
She giggled and shook her head. One of the curls held back in her hairclip fell past her shoulder. For some reason, Kenneth found himself transfixed by that curl, and he focused his eyes on it instead of on the woman in front of him. Despite the heavy rain, the lock of hair was dripping slowly, almost methodically. It reminded him of the hospital room, of the IV.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
His own hair had been thoroughly pounded by the rain by now, and it stuck to his forehead and neck as he felt water trickling down his ear.
“But you said everything was clear,” he reminded her. “You must know what you’re going to do.”
“That’s just it!” she cried, grabbing his other hand as well. “You see now, don’t you? You feel it too. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do, or where I’m going to go, or what’s going to happen next. It could be anything. Isn’t it beautiful?”
She leaned in closer to him as she spoke. Her hands tightened around his, and when she looked into his eyes, she was so radiant, her eyes were so filled with the conviction that whatever she felt was the answer, that shining beacon of universal meaning they’d been searching for, that Kenneth did not have the heart to tell her that all he felt was cold, and wet, and rained upon.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
I know this is a topic that has been discussed ad nauseum in the traveller community, but I've been thinking about the traveller/tourist distinction lately, and thought that I may as well weigh in on the debate.
As many people on my friends lists are, inexplicably to me, not travel junkies, I'll start by explaining the issue. “Travellers” hate “tourists.” This has been the case for quite some time, actually, as evidenced by quotes from the great minds of bygone eras such as Paul Theroux:
“Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.”
or G. K. Chesterton:
“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.”
It's a distinction that has been very much taken to heart by travellers. But why? Why is it so important to travellers to make this distinction, to try and make it clear that they are most assuredly not tourists?
For one thing, travel is important to travellers. I know this seems like a vacuously true statement, but it needs to be noted nonetheless. Travellers make travel one of the top priorities of their lives; it is a lifestyle, and everything they do relates to it in some way. Even when, like me, they're sitting in some normal American city working a 9-5, Monday-Friday job, they're doing it with one purpose in mind: funding future travel. Do I want to buy that bottle of wine? I could survive for 10 days in Cambodia with that money, so, no thanks. Do I want to go to the movies? That's 15 days in Senegal... I think I'll watch something for free on my computer.
When I'm saving money, greedily watching the number in my checking account tick upward, I am not thinking about buying an iPhone (I'm still using my parents' little phone from 2004), or about a down payment on a house (why would I possibly want something to tie me down to a specific geographical spot?!). I'll admit that I am thinking about paying off my student loans, but only because this is a necessity. What I am really thinking is that it will fund a trip. And when I look into airfare, possible places to visit, there's not even a twinge of guilt at the thought of the amount of money it will cost. I don't think, “Shouldn't I be using it on something more important?”, because there is nothing more important (except, of course, family and close friends). Travel is my priority. That's what the money's there for-- if I don't use it on travel, then what?
When something is that important to you, as to be your passion, your life, well, usually you don't like being equated with a dabbler, a hobbyist. Anyone can be a tourist, and most people from the traveller's home country probably are, at some point in their lives. Nearly everybody in developed countries travels at some point. They call it a vacation, and it's a brief, fun, relaxing diversion from their lives for a week or two.
If a traveller is disdainful of a tourist, it's important to remember that most tourists-- who are tourists for a couple of weeks a year, perhaps, and a local for the rest of it-- are probably equally so of travellers; or rather, they would be, if they ever stopped to think about such people. To them, travellers are just taking an extended vacation, for a year or two or three, almost certainly just trying to dodge real life. To them, travel is a vacation, not a lifestyle.
I think that some of the resistance to tourists is a resistance to the view of travel as diversion. If travellers approached travel the way most tourists do, then they would be drifters wasting their lives away on idleness. Instead, to them, it is the only way to live life to the fullest.
So do I think the tourist/traveller distinction exists? Absolutely. What I don't think is that there is any inherent value judgment attached to either of them-- neither is intrinsically superior or inferior to the other.
I don't think that a tourist necessarily should approach a trip the same way a traveller would. What is everyday life to a traveller is a special treat, and a chance to relax and get away from the pressures of their work for a tourist. And, in more cases than not, I'd wager, the reverse is true: what is everyday life to a tourist is a vacation to the traveller: one of those times when they return home to visit family or friends and take the opportunity of returning to their homeland to relax and catch their breath again.
Everybody treats what they regard to be their “real life” as different from their break. The difference between a tourist and a traveller is only what they consider real life, and what's the breather.
As many people on my friends lists are, inexplicably to me, not travel junkies, I'll start by explaining the issue. “Travellers” hate “tourists.” This has been the case for quite some time, actually, as evidenced by quotes from the great minds of bygone eras such as Paul Theroux:
“Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.”
or G. K. Chesterton:
“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.”
It's a distinction that has been very much taken to heart by travellers. But why? Why is it so important to travellers to make this distinction, to try and make it clear that they are most assuredly not tourists?
For one thing, travel is important to travellers. I know this seems like a vacuously true statement, but it needs to be noted nonetheless. Travellers make travel one of the top priorities of their lives; it is a lifestyle, and everything they do relates to it in some way. Even when, like me, they're sitting in some normal American city working a 9-5, Monday-Friday job, they're doing it with one purpose in mind: funding future travel. Do I want to buy that bottle of wine? I could survive for 10 days in Cambodia with that money, so, no thanks. Do I want to go to the movies? That's 15 days in Senegal... I think I'll watch something for free on my computer.
When I'm saving money, greedily watching the number in my checking account tick upward, I am not thinking about buying an iPhone (I'm still using my parents' little phone from 2004), or about a down payment on a house (why would I possibly want something to tie me down to a specific geographical spot?!). I'll admit that I am thinking about paying off my student loans, but only because this is a necessity. What I am really thinking is that it will fund a trip. And when I look into airfare, possible places to visit, there's not even a twinge of guilt at the thought of the amount of money it will cost. I don't think, “Shouldn't I be using it on something more important?”, because there is nothing more important (except, of course, family and close friends). Travel is my priority. That's what the money's there for-- if I don't use it on travel, then what?
When something is that important to you, as to be your passion, your life, well, usually you don't like being equated with a dabbler, a hobbyist. Anyone can be a tourist, and most people from the traveller's home country probably are, at some point in their lives. Nearly everybody in developed countries travels at some point. They call it a vacation, and it's a brief, fun, relaxing diversion from their lives for a week or two.
If a traveller is disdainful of a tourist, it's important to remember that most tourists-- who are tourists for a couple of weeks a year, perhaps, and a local for the rest of it-- are probably equally so of travellers; or rather, they would be, if they ever stopped to think about such people. To them, travellers are just taking an extended vacation, for a year or two or three, almost certainly just trying to dodge real life. To them, travel is a vacation, not a lifestyle.
I think that some of the resistance to tourists is a resistance to the view of travel as diversion. If travellers approached travel the way most tourists do, then they would be drifters wasting their lives away on idleness. Instead, to them, it is the only way to live life to the fullest.
So do I think the tourist/traveller distinction exists? Absolutely. What I don't think is that there is any inherent value judgment attached to either of them-- neither is intrinsically superior or inferior to the other.
I don't think that a tourist necessarily should approach a trip the same way a traveller would. What is everyday life to a traveller is a special treat, and a chance to relax and get away from the pressures of their work for a tourist. And, in more cases than not, I'd wager, the reverse is true: what is everyday life to a tourist is a vacation to the traveller: one of those times when they return home to visit family or friends and take the opportunity of returning to their homeland to relax and catch their breath again.
Everybody treats what they regard to be their “real life” as different from their break. The difference between a tourist and a traveller is only what they consider real life, and what's the breather.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)