Reinvention

Are boundaries fixed or are they moveable? A man crosses a border, moves to a new land, takes up the language. Even his name sounds different in the new tongue. Is he the same man when John becomes Juan, Sean, Ian, or Ivan?

Once the world had been mapped, space was the new frontier (frontera meaning border). But we can see our own house from space on Google maps.

Maybe the next frontier is interior. Was this what James Joyce understood, why he wrote those interior narratives, his stream of consciousness? Inside I can reinvent my outside. Interior fashion. Interior make-over. Detailing, glossing, re-naming.

You become the person who attends the reunion incognito. You become Mr. X, the Unknown One. Not personality theft but identity migration. Identity expatriots in a common world.

Hope

From Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms:
The Italian Priest (first voice) talking with the American who is an officer in the Italian army:

"There are people who would make war. In this country there are many like that. There are other people who would not make war."
"But the first ones make them do it."
"Yes."
"And I help them."
"You are a foreigner. You are a patriot."
"And the ones who would not make war? Can they stop it?"
"I do not know."
He looked out the window again. I watched his face.
"Have they ever been able to stop it?"
"They are not organized to stop things and when they get organized their leaders sell them out."
"Then it's hopeless?"
"It is never hopeless. But sometimes I cannot hope. I try always to hope but sometimes I cannot."
"Maybe the war will be over."
"I hope so."

Travel

What is it about travel? The desire for the new? Mobility? The thrilling alienation that comes from disrupting our routine?

I enjoy the rolling panorama of driving, the rush of airplanes on takeoff and looking down at the earth, the ferry leaving the dock and the water dividing at the bow. The sound of voices, the scent in the air (salt water, pine), the surprise of what's new.

What's local refreshes me. In Wisconsin I had a local stout made with smoked hops. In Paris my palate encountered jellied fish. In Mexico I ate pollo mole poblano that was like chocolate chicken (true!) in my mouth. In Toledo I enjoyed hand-made tortillas for the first time. In Cleveland I once drank a Hungarian wine that was pale green, sweet and quite delicious.

Carl Sandburg asks, "Where to? What next?" Good question. What's the good answer? Get out the atlas and the map.

I loved maps when I was a kid. I still do. My eyes scan the maps for highways, backroads, high elevations, unexpectedly crazy names, state lines, rivers, lakes (always the lakes). Campbell McGrath has a poem in Road Atlas in which he imagines trying to visit all the towns named Campbell or McGrath. I can't say for sure, but I bet there are more towns like Robertsville or Roberton than Miltnersburgh.

Next month I will be in Mexico City and Cuernavaca. Already I am looking through the travel guides for old hotels and local mercado restaurants. When I travel I take in the world through my eyes, ears, nose and mouth. Don't just ask me what a place looked like--I'd rather tell you how it tastes.