Literature of Travel and Adventure, 2004
....The Journey of the Self
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(Spring, 2004) Writing Exercise #2
In a brief essay (2-3 pages of typical MSWord text) explore Tanya Shaffer’s comment below, using material from the readings, your own experience in new places, and your Partner exercise in Hightstown.
Here what I love about travel: Strangers get a chance to amaze you. Sometimes a single day can bring a blooming surprise, a simple kindness that open a chink in the brittle shell of you heart and makes you a different person when you go to sleep – more tender, less jaded, than you were when you woke up. (“Looking for Abdelati” 3)
Kat Peetz’s response:
Amazement
What I love about life, more specifically, travel, is that “strangers get a chance to amaze” me (“Looking for Abdelati,” A Woman’s Passion for Travel, 3). There is so much knowledge and experience that can be obtained from a total stranger if one is curious and brave enough to talk to him or her. Unfortunately, I am relatively shy around strangers, and it often takes some time for me to open up to them. However, after I have done so, I feel extremely uplifted and then am often bombarded with feelings of regret. Usually it is regret that I do not put myself out more or take more interest in meeting all of the fascinating people in this world. Because there really are so many!
This past January, my family and I took what most would consider a “bogus trip” to South America. While we were in Peru, we met many interesting people, but the most memorable was a couple who lived in Holland. The woman was an audacious American who had lived in Lima, Peru for three years and therefore wanted to take her Dutch husband back there to show him the sites. We met them in one city and coincidently were headed to another at the same time. Even though we had spent a total of about ten minutes talking to these people, we decided to meet up in the next city, Cuzco, and have dinner with them in a traditional Incan restaurant. Our new friends had been everywhere, lived everywhere, and yet seemed so young to have had so much travel and life experience. It made me feel somewhat unaccomplished and insignificant, yet excited at the same time because I realized all of the trips and adventures still ahead for me.
Looking for Abdelati reminds me of this experience because in a sense, my family and the seemingly friendly couple were taking a chance. “For all they knew we were con artists, thieves, anything. Would such a thing ever happen in the U.S.”(9)? I would like to think so, although I am not certain. It seems as if in other countries, the combination of travelers being relaxed and somewhat out of their element allows them to experience things they might not have ordinarily. They can remove themselves from their busy, daily routines and actually take a step back and learn. They can see that there are good-natured, altruistic people in this world who care about their well-being and want to get to know them. For instance, despite the narrator and Miguel being at the wrong Abdelati’s house, a member of the family says, “It doesn’t matter at all. Won’t you stay for dinner, please?”(9) In the end, friendship is friendship, not matter if it is a friendship of forty years or one less than a day old.
The two women of “Special Delivery” have a very similar experience, realizing that “the postcard [is] merely the message. Making friendship [is] the medium”(“Special Delivery” 19). After one day of having known Gina and her family, they “kissed, cried, offered [their] respective spare rooms any time, promised to be fluent in each other’s language the next time we met”(21). As it is evident here, one of the best experiences that comes from traveling is newly-formed relationships that are completely unexpected. These relationships can be created just about anywhere. Just this past week Jeff Spitz and I had the pleasure of talking to one of the owners of the bustling Hot Bagels business, a man I regularly just request a poppy-seed bagel from. If I had not spoken to this “I love Daddy” t-shirt-wearer, I would not have known that he is an Egyptian father of two who came to the United States in search of a better life with the money he had saved up to run a business. Now, not only can I put a face to the Hot Bagels store, but I can have an appreciation for all of the hard work and sacrifices the family had to make in order to get their business going.
Sacrifice is a concept known by many. Santiago, for instance, of The Alchemist, oscillates between sacrificing his current life as a shepherd for the mere possibility of being a wealthy, married man. He does not make this decision alone, however. Rather he is influenced by strangers he meets every day. The old man Santiago meets who turns out to be a king wisely encourages him to “follow [his] Personal Legend through to its conclusion”(The Alchemist 30). Santiago takes these words to heart and therefore begins his journey to the Pyramids. At the beginning of his journey, Santiago is hired by a crystal shop owner who when speaking about his dream of going to Mecca, admits, “I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on living”(55). This teaches Santiago that “every blessing ignored becomes a curse”, and he must therefore continue to follow his Personal Legend (58).
On his journey Santiago interprets and begins to understand many languages, however after first meeting the beautiful Fatima “he [learns] the most important part of the language that all the world [speaks]- the language that everyone on earth [is] capable of understanding in their heart. It [is] love”(92). After that day, Santiago’s life is changed forever. Upon meeting the Alchemist, he considers abandoning his Personal Legend because of his new found love. However the Alchemist will not allow it, and tells him that “love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit it’s because it wasn’t true love”(120). Although Santiago does not know the Alchemist well, he acknowledges that he must trust and listen to him.
Considering the fate of Santiago and the others mentioned earlier, one can learn a lot from someone one has only just met. After abandoning the notion that the amount of time one has known another dictates expertise and trust, infinite aspects of life can be conveyed from one person to another. In order to fully appreciate and believe this declaration, one must experience it for oneself.
Kat Peetz