It took about two and a half days to see Bangalore from the pages of the Lonely Planet. Not that that stuff is particularly important (it is) but Bangalore’s one of the big ones so we felt obligated. Nobody likes that stuff. Nobody you’d want to meet, anyway. The people you do want to meet can be found in side street restaurants where the floor is the counter and the cook doesn’t presume to take the chilies out if you’re white. The people you do want to meet will, with reservation, give, so modestly, (if coaxed!) penny thoughts on culture. They will grasp for words, click their tongue and, looking askance, humbly denounce (with sympathetic concessions as to the utility of) the guidebook. It is in these restaurants that you can form the bond of mutual dislike for all things inauthentic. You can discuss the rape (no quotation marks) of India over Kingfisher and cheap cigarettes and share glimpses of The Real India (no quotation marks) until the check comes. Then you can shake hands, part ways and, once back at the hotel, shit your insides out.
Something has to be said about the Western G.I. tract in India during the summer; it’s a very busy place. Some regulate that instead of their vocal chords.
But there were problems besides these: it was my birthday. I hadn’t spoken to anyone from home in at least a month. This meant calls and emails and the reminder that somewhere I had obligations greater than chipping in for cab fare. Worse, it meant others felt obligated towards me. I had been wandering, adrift and rootless through gutters and smells and small acquaintances and bad hotels. I had been feeling, I thought, a lightness of being which I found not unbearable. But birthdays are a small price to pay for living so I made calls and emails until a somnolent salve had coated my conscience and past.
The day was uneventful, I wandered around MG road with a Danish girl who shopped too much and called her boyfriend everyday (Michael sounds like Smeagel (LOTR) in Danish; I laugh alone) but was not a “person you want to meet”, which is why I liked her immensely. I bought a shirt and got a haircut. I’d discovered that Indian haircuts end with the barber literally pummeling a palm’s quantity of oil onto your head. He starts by slapping your head vigorously from different directions. Then he massages the scalp like someone trying to pop a volleyball with his fingers. He then attempts to erase the hair from your head with his knuckles. He sends you on your merry way and the oil runs down your forehead and the back of your neck and your head feels and smells like an oil tanker spill in Listerene.
At about 10:00 we walked into a bakery and bought a birthday cake to eat back at the hotel. As we left, a young woman in rags, hooded and clutching a baby, sprinted towards me. She grabbed the cake box and pulled. I held on. Her face was hollow and sharp. Gnashing peanut brittle teeth. Groans. A caricature of poverty. She couldn’t have wrenched that cake box from a baby’s hands. That cake box. With my cake in it. My birthday cake. I let go. I felt stupid. What could I say?

The River

Walking down a hundred stairs to get to an inlet of the Amazon River can be a bit precarious in the rain. Mud, leaves, and insects cover the wooden steps. They are hardly visible. I look from side to side, checking to make sure whatever is making noises in the ground next to me isn’t a snake. I lose my footing and decide to forget about the snakes and focus on where I’m walking. The path is not lit. I finally understand what it means to be secluded. Darkness presses in on me from every side, only the occasional flashlight gives me a sense of where I am. Finally I hit level ground and I have never been more relieved. A step up onto the slippery dock, and I can see the outline of a small motorboat only a few feet away. For a group of ten, it looks like it is going to be a tight fit. However, we all seem to squish together-whether in fear of what could be around us or from shelter from the rain. Off we go, through the drizzling rain, down the small, winding river. The trees are so close together I still can’t see anything.. We move slowly and quietly through the waters, as if in fear of disrupting what lives beneath us. The river seems to be getting wider. The trees seem to be spread farther and farther apart. Some light penetrates through the leaves and dances off the surface of the water. I can finally see some of the vegetation more clearly. We stop from time to time and pull up next to the bank for the guide to illuminate a frog or snake or bird for us to see. I find it interesting that so many animals come out at night. Finally, the tell us to hold on. Not knowing what was coming, I held onto my hat. The motor roars, and suddenly we rocket forward. Emerging from the covered forest into the open river was one of the more amazing things I have experienced in my life. The moon was brighter than I could ever remember, there were more stars than I could even describe, and never have I ever felt more in awe of my surroundings. It was such an amazing sight. Never have I ever felt more in touch with nature. The sights, sounds, and smells have stuck with me but there is no doubt in my mind that I need to go back.

On the Bus

A while back I decided to take a trip with and a couple of good old boys to a music show downtown.  We had no car so we would be navigating the notoriously lousy LA public transit system.  This was sure to be an interesting night because buses in LA are reserved for people with great vigor for life.

      As we pulled away I took a seat where I had a clear view of all the rest of the riders.  The bus skidded to a halt outside a large hotel and on walked two tourists who appeared to be European.  The couple was easily out of place among the patrons of the bus in their brightly colored garb and maps under arm. 

      “Ay Eddie you got that guitar hero yet?” A woman from the back of the bus yelled at the polo clad European. 

      “Ay Eddie, remember me we talked for an hour on the Goldline.” 

     When the woman finished her sentence the whole bus turned to look at the puzzled European man who turned around in astonishment. 

    “Remember?” she hopefully gazed into his eyes desperate for a reply.  The man’s face turned blank and he turned back around.  She refused to give up that easy.

     “Eddie! We talked for a whole hour!”  The man refused to give her any acknowledgement. 

     Seeing that her exclamation did not work she begged him to remember by repeating his “name” continuously for fifteen minutes. 

“Eddie…Eddie…don’t you remember,” her gaze never left the back of his head.  

      The mood on the bus began to become uncomfortable.  The repeated Eddies began to visibly upset the patrons of the bus.  One man to that sat directly to my right couldn’t take it. 

     “Shut up lady!”  She stopped.  Then the man turned to me.

     “There always has to be one like her.”    

     When the bus halted at Colorado and Green the European tourists got and left with no warning.  The woman from the back utter one last desperate word in their direction,

“Eddie?” 

      An empty feeling overwhelmed me as the doors closed.  What had began as a funny situation relating to video games had quickly turned serious.  I’ll never be able to understand what went through that woman’s head that day, but I’ll always remember what I learned on the bus that day. 

We sit silent and unmoving in the heat. This is the silence of movies, where the minutia are amplified; the sound of my sweat slithering down my side and then falling, falling for miles, creating canyons in the dirt. A mosquito lingers. Now, I recognize the beast. Impatient, judging, and insidious—she fills the empty space. They remain still, oblivious to my demon. Erected from birth to sit for this hottest hour of the day, they survey the fields before them and feel the earth beneath them. I hear voices and see artful reconstructions of my childhood. I am on the outside looking in. Despite the relentless chatter, I am only a façade, a shell of what seems to be human. I am seeking. I am desperately seeking and anxiously waiting to be found. My hand itches to swat the mosquito away. I am fearless. I am brilliant. Irritation replaces affirmations. The heat swells. There, in the belly of the beast, the muted screams peak and fade away. And then, I pause. Sitting becomes an action. My insides slow to match my outsides and it’s quiet. Reds of pots grow Technicolor sitting in the bright white light of the day. My body fights to know the difference between the peace of rest and the dead of sleep. Circling like a vulture around this precious moment, she, the beast, returns; replacing pain, confusion, stress brick by brick. But here, in this accidental meditation, far from the mystics and monasteries, beneath the baobab tree, we sit. The pulse returns. Peanuts are ground, rice is cooked, and mafé appears to be ready.

            The moon’s laying low over Florida’s highway system tonight. I-95 can be pretty hypnotic, if you don’t watch out. Just now I’d have driven straight off the road if I hadn’t heard those horns coming in on the radio – gotta love that Johnny Cash. Woke me right back up.

            I’d never really noticed how still it is out here, now that I’m basically the only car besides the trucks. Egrets take flight in the canopies off past the road, and big grandfather gators, they’re wallowing in the swamps. But here there’s just me. Well, Johnny’s here too, but really it’s just me. At least I sure do feel alone.

            That’s something else I hadn’t thought about before – there sure is a difference between being alone and being lonely. I rather prefer being here by myself at the moment. It’s not often I get time to myself. I probably won’t get too much once Dave finds out I stole his car, but I I’m just going to keep on driving. The road is making me feel real nice, like I have a whole bunch of options out there. I used to get overwhelmed looking at a menu. But, right now I feel grateful for the possibility of endlessness. Endless highway. That’s real nice.

            Having to stop at some lonely town named Edgewater for gas is making me feel good, too, in a strange, still way. Who lives here? Did they always live here? Do they see their high school classmates in the supermarket? Seems like a poor place. I guess poor people are always poor, huh? Their lives stay the same after I drive away? It’s so still in the early hours.

            This moon is so bright. I want to see all those creatures I know are in the marshes and on the beach – the little turtles might be hatching tonight. I never actually made it out to the beach to watch before. Never even turned off my lights, so they wouldn’t get confused.

Exit coming up for Cocoa Beach. I’m going to take it, and sit in the dunes and look for the little turtles. Maybe I’ll watch the sun rise. Seems like I’m being pulled by the moon, too. Maybe that’s why I up and stole my brother’s car. I’m just going with the flow; my natural ebb and tide, which says go…

“And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it's a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.” - Pico Iyer, “Why We Travel” Snowy Road

The airport wasn’t as busy as he thought it would be. It was half past seven in the morning, in an international city, but nothing seemed to be happening. He went through customs, went to get his baggage and finally his rental car. He started driving away from the city center without looking at his surroundings. He had hoped that he would find an immediate difference in his mood, but there was none, as long as he was around the airport. The airport was sucking the life out of him, as hollow as he already felt. Well, he was in Stockholm nonetheless: on a whim, or a dare, or maybe he was running away from someone, something. It didn’t matter, he was searching for a sanctuary. It was still dark, the road was empty, but the further he traveled from the airport the more he was lulled: by the fact that he hadn’t slept on the plane at all and by the soft sound that his tires were making on the road. Despite the reality that he had just been in a seriously disturbed state of mind, he was starting to feel calm, starting to feel better. He looked out his window, finally seeing beautiful Sweden.

He had left last night after a long week of work, a long week of sitting in the office trying to impress his boss. It was getting exhausting. He had worked for the company for three years and he wasn’t going anywhere. His apartment wasn’t sanctuary enough this time, he needed to be alone, completely alone, somewhere he hadn’t been before. He needed to drive down the snowy backroads of Sweden and park on the side of the road to listen to the silence. He had told his girlfriend this, but she said, “Why do you need to go to Sweden to hear silence?” She didn’t understand. He was ready to be changed, ready for an awakening, an epiphany, at least a few weeks off from his life.

He turned down a snowy dirt road and pulled to the side. He sat and watched as the sun rose above the trees.

He didn’t know where he would sleep tonight, but he knew he was feeling free, feeling the weight lift off him as he settled into this new world, away from everything he had ever known, away from the comforts of his language and his job and his girlfriend and his apartment. He needed a change, a complete change, and this was the only way he knew how to get it.

I don’t remember much of the flight into Mexico City, just filling out the customs forms and then, in the airport, going through customs, as nervous as I always am, worried they’ll find something banned that I don’t even have. When I passed through customs Maria Teresa was waiting for me, but Dillon was off wandering, searching for us at other exits. When he returned we left the airport and I saw Distrito Federal for the first time. It was loud, crowded, smoggy, intimidating, and full of crazy drivers. As we drove to his mother’s home I tried not to pay attention to the cars around ours: apparently lane lines were just a suggestion.

The next day we went to Teotihuacan. It was hot but when we got there and I looked at the huge city stretched out in front of me, presided over by the Pyramid of the Sun in the center, some 700 feet tall, the heat didn’t matter. It was awe-inspiring. As we walked toward the Pyramid of the Moon on the north end Dillon told me about the ancient city. He talked on and on about the city and the people who lived there. He would do this at the Museo Nacional de Antropologìa as well, a few days later, and his knowledge of the cultures that had established Tenochtitlán and eventually Mexico City was stunning.

Everywhere we went, Dillon and his mother had something to tell me about the history of their city, ancient and not-so-ancient. He told me about the ice rink and the three nativity scenes in the Zocalo on Christmas Eve; he told me the legends of Our Lady of Guadalupe as we rode the short moving sidewalk in front of her; about the chinampas that had turned Lake Xochimilco into a maze of canals as we glided through them on the trajinera we had rented for the day. When we walked through Coyoacan and La Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo’s house, he told me about the history of the neighborhood, the artist, and the famous homeless man, el changoleon, the "monkey-lion," we saw posing for pictures with locals. He could tell me all about this place he hadn’t lived since he was a child, and I could feel the pride of his country in his voice. It made me realize something about American culture and Mexican. In Mexico, everyone knows about the Niños Héroes who defended the Military Academy in Chapultepec Park from the Marines during the Mexican-American War and about Our Lady of Guadalupe. They are proud of their culture and they know these things because they make up their identity, not because they just happened to retain this information after the test in history class. This country is their home, and there is pride in that. I know what I learned in U.S. History about the Founding Fathers and the Revolutionary War. These weren’t things my parents told me because it makes me who I am. We, as Americans, don’t look much into our identity, except when it is convenient. I have never felt the connection to my home I could see both he and his mother felt to their city, decrepit and confusing as it was. They are chilangos, through and through. I am American, but only because I was born there, not because of any connection to my country.

TokyoIt was the first snow of the season in Tokyo and I had to bike to school. Eager to see snow for the first time in my life, I put on my uniform, grabbed my scarf, had some cereal, and hurried out to the street. I swung my leg over the seat of my bike and then I realized that I forgot my gloves. I checked my pockets. No keys. After kicking myself over forgetting my keys and taking a moment to convince myself that snow couldn’t really be all that bad, I started pedaling. I was still feeling pretty good about my journey through the snow after the first couple of blocks, but as I continued I began to notice that some of the snow had melted on impact with the ground, only to be frozen again into a thin icy sheet over the asphalt. I tried to focus my attention on the pedestrians. They were the same people I had seen on the street every day for the most part, but they helped to keep my mind off of the cold and the potential danger of the road. Ten minutes went by. By this time, the snow had begun to take its toll on my bare fingers. After another twenty minutes all thoughts about the pedestrians had been replaced by my desire to get to school and run my hands under warm water. I started pedaling faster but the wind chill only made things worse. With five minutes left in my commute, the only thought going through my head was, “Why did I ever decide to come to Japan?” In the end, I made it to school on time. I sat on my hands the entire day.

if only they did...

Paris smelled like shit. I was in the city of love and romance and emotion and all I could think about was how the city of lights was literally full of shit – specifically, of the canine variety. Granted, perhaps my sour mood was due to the fact I knew not a lick of French (a fact that seemed to be thrown into my face often) – or maybe it was because I was sporting a head full of frizzed, unruly hair due to the foreign climate, leaving me to tend to the wounds dealt to my pride as Parisian women paraded about, sleek and petite and unmarred by the cruelty of weather.

Why was I even here? There are some vague memories floating about of my mother gushing about Europe, all aflutter with glee that finally, finally, she could go sightseeing and just experience so much more than what was available in our completely average, suburban, two-cars-two-kids-two-story-one-dog home. What a relief to escape the trivialities of adequacy! – or something like that.

Vacations were always like this – they sounded just so good on paper, what with the traveling and the testing of new waters, and my mother was always so overflowing with excitement while my father stayed calm and logical, plotting our routes, planning for gas refuels and lunch breaks. What always wound up happening was usually various amalgamations of the following: we get lost (surprise), we get lazy, we walk for extended periods of time without reprieve, we visit a ridiculous number of churches-slash-temples-slash-shrines, it is hot, it is humid, my brother runs away after an argument and magically finds his way home by way of sheer tenacity that is one part natural instinct and two parts complete foolishness, my mother has her dreams of a perfect vacation crushed, and we all go home glad to no longer be living in the same room together.

I realized once that my favorite memories of traveling are from when I was just six or seven, and we roved around the United States in an old Mercury Villager minivan, red with the middle seats pulled out so my brother and I could lay on the floor of the van covered in blankets, reading the Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) and Robin Hood (also abridged), and eating out of a cooler while my mother dozed in the backseat, small frame stretched across what was rightfully three seats. This moment of spectacular clarification arrived sometime during the three hours we waited at the Lourve to see the Mona Lisa, and it was tinged with sadness when I figured out that it was because that van, with its chipped red paint and blankets, was most like home.

Home in horrible, shameful, delightfully perfect, average suburbia.

The Pool bar at our hotel (Si Como No)There is something so captivating about a sunset. I don’t know if it’s the way the colors swirl in the sky or if it’s the way that the gentle light brings everything to a warm glow, but I have always taken a special liking to this time of day. We had just finished eating at an outdoor café but I was still hungry. More than anything I was thirsty. I am by no means a picky eater, but something about the grilled fish I was served was a little “off”…and the water looked potentially poisonous. Nevertheless, the little monkeys that we could see climbing across telephone wires made the meal rather entertaining, and now the sun was setting, so I was not about to complain. My grandma, cousin, and I shuffled through the sand until our toes were wet with blue grey bathtub water. Dirty black dogs waded in the water along with stray cats. A few people were swimming in the water and some were sitting in the brown sand. Many of them were smoking, and the air had a dirty, smoggy feel to it.
The sky was beautiful. But it was just as beautiful all of the times that I walked to towards the west parking lot at 6:15 p.m. after my orchestra rehearsals. My grandma asked us if we would like to walk around San Jose or go back to our hotel – we chose the latter. When I jumped into the clean, aqua blue pool water, I was suddenly reminded of how thirsty I was. So we swam over to the pool bar and ordered cheeseburgers and bottled water. Finally satisfied, we got out of the pool and headed over to the hot tub, which was located on a terrace that overlooked the ocean. The sky was still softly glowing though the sun had set some time ago. It was more enjoyable to look at from the comfort of our Americanized hotel. In the hot tub we befriended some other tourists and we all talked about ‘the hotel has very good service’ and ‘yes, we have gone on the zip-line tour’ and ‘it is so different here, but very beautiful and the people are, for the most part, very friendly’ and so on… This was the highlight of our day. We felt clean, comfortable, relaxed and full…and more than that, we were in the company of people who we could say these things to. And though everything – from the conversation to the setting – was superficial, no tourist frowns at the opportunity to see the sunset from a safe, clean, picturesque vantage point.