Category Archives: Travel

To Part the Air

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Screen Shot 2014-01-01 at 3.00.38 PMThere is a scene in the recent movie, “The Way, Way Back” in which the 14-year-old lead character discovers a bicycle in the garage of his mother’s new boyfriend’s summer cottage where he has been trapped for what promises to be a torturous summer.   With a spectacular blast of background music he breaks out of the garage on the diminutive bike and rides away with a new sense of freedom.

The scene struck a deep chord for me, because it brought back memories of my childhood, when, each day after school in order to escape the constant shouting and threatening in my family, I would ride as far away as I could on my bike until I became just a bit lost, and then eventually find my way home.   I remember never really wanting to go home, and trying to calculate ways to run away, but as a young child I of course didn’t have the wherewithal.

I remember the sense of freedom I had when riding my bike, the sense of movement and the rush of air over my face, and even a more acute sense of smell.  When I left Queens at age 10 my family moved to Framingham, Massachusetts, where we lived on a suburban street on a small hill.  At that age the hill wasn’t so small, and I distinctly remember getting on my bike at the top of the hill, raising both hands in the air, and closing my eyes as the bike picked up speed on the way down.  I could even turn the corner at the bottom of the hill with no hands and no sight, just the sensation of the bike beneath me and the air blowing over my chest and face.

That thrill ended when one day I took the turn at the bottom of the hill and hit a parked car.  I was thrown first into the handles, which knocked the wind out of me, then tossed onto the trunk of the car to be stopped by the rear window.  The car was dented, and I was bruised, but nothing else broke.  That was probably my first memory of flying, albeit without wings.

In high school in California I learned to drive, and that became the E-ticket to freedom.  Driving up the winding Pacific Coast Highway on a chilly night, windows open, music blaring, the heater throwing warm air at my feet; this was the closest thing to ecstasy a 16-year-old virgin could experience.  I worked odd jobs during high school just to pay for gas and I would drive my ‘65 Barracuda as far as I could in any direction until the gas was half gone, then turn around and see if I could make it home before I ran out.

Whenever I am stopped on the street by a stranger and asked what my favorite poem is, I tell them it is this one by Mark Strand:

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

 

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in

to fill the spaces

where my body’s been.

 

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

 

Note from Gagarin, Armenia

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Gagarin final.docx

Last March, I was passing through the town of Gagarin, Armenia, obviously named after the Russian cosmonaut, and I stopped to take some photographs. Typically, as I roam the countryside with camera in hand onlookers greet me warily. I imagine that the locals see this pale-faced, camera-toting, oddly dressed person as some sort of CIA or KGB type out to pad his files with photographs of the locals. There is a popular saying in Armenia that “the KGB is still watching,” which may in fact be true, although technically the initials have changed.

But this time, through the voice of my Georgian taxi driver who was doubling as my translator, I was invited into one of the homes of some random on-looker, greeted with a warm cup of Armenian coffee, a shot of home-brewed alcohol, and a ridiculous amount of food that arrived magically from the quiet, near toothless woman who seemed just delighted to make total strangers feel at home.

I was told a story in Russian about how “in Soviet times” people were happier; they were working and could take a month off to holiday in Moscow or some distant city. Now they have to travel to Moscow just to try to find work, because there is little for them to do in the corrupt, post-Soviet Union independent oligarchical state of Armenia.

My translator told me that the spectacled, cigarette wielding man whose house we were invited into told him that perhaps this American “photographer” could write about the plight of the people in Gagarin, people who struggle to find dignity despite unemployment and abject poverty, about how they once were part of a community that manufactured clothing and served a purpose in the world.

I don’t understand really why I feel so at home in Armenia, but perhaps this tradition of hospitality has something to do with it. I am not Armenian, yet I feel called to the country in ways my intellect can’t fathom. In a country where the police will stop you randomly and argue until you reach a “settlement,” where there are two ways to do nearly everything (the official way and the way that gets you results), where winters can be bitter cold and poverty outside the capital is rampant, people still walk the streets arm in arm until all hours of the morning, and will invite you into their homes to eat and drink with their families. Somehow when I am here I feel as though I belong here, and when I am gone I miss it.

The reason that I am drawn to this place is a mystery. Maybe it is the same thing that once drew me to Ireland; the suffering that lies just beneath the surface, or maybe it’s just the cheap beer. I don’t know. But clearly, the culture of hospitality runs deep. It ‘s difficult not to feel welcome.

Finding Emma Larkin in Thailand

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6a00d8341bf7f753ef00e54f2513468833-800wiWith the exception of the Tom Swift science fiction books of my childhood, I have never been much of a fiction reader.   But I do dabble from time to time.   George Orwell was someone whose books I found eminently readable given my short attention span.  Recently, I read Orwell’s first published novel,  “Down and Out in Paris and London” for the first time.  I loved it, so I then went on to read a book by Emma Larkin called “Finding George Orwell in Burma.”

In “Finding George Orwell…,” the author Emma Larkin goes to Burma in order to retrace Orwell’s history there.   Orwell spent several years in Burma as a police officer for the Indian government while Burma was in Britain’s hands, and his experiences there undoubtedly helped to shape some of his views of the effects of totalitarianism.

As is my wont when I enjoy a book, I looked up “Emma Larkin” to find out a bit more about the author.  After all, a lone woman foraging through occasionally remote areas by herself in a country that periodically jails and tortures anyone who looks askance at the wrong person or who utters the wrong words is something approaching heroic (or stupid?) proportion.

What I found out about Emma Larkin was intriguing and a bit annoying.  First of all, Emma Larkin is a pseudonym, a fact which unto itself is charmingly synchronous, given that her book is about searching for the remnants of George Orwell, which is also a pseudonym.  Eric Blair—Orwell’s given name, chose to use the pseudonym partly to allow himself continued anonymity as he posed as poor, but also it afforded his family some distance from the controversial stands he was taking.   Not long after Eric Blair published as Orwell his real identity was revealed.   Even J.K. Rowling, with her fantastic resources, couldn’t hold on to her true identity for too long when she published her recent novel under a nom de plume.  But who, pray tell, is Emma Larkin?

I was once told that it was really easy to find anyone, with one exception.  The exception is when the person doesn’t wish to be found.  Wikipedia, the font of all knowledge in this millennium, knew some key facts about Emma Larkin, but it didn’t know (or reveal) who she really is.   We do know that Emma Larkin lives in Thailand, that she was born in the U.S., and was educated in the U.K.

Although Burma recently underwent significant reform, it is still far from being a safe place to speak openly about the military government.  Revealing the true identity behind the Emma Larkin nom de plume could likely put her in danger. The military government in Burma still has eyes everywhere, and the threat of writers and others being jailed for merely expressing critical thoughts about the government at a tea shop remains.

But knowing who Emma Larkin really is would also potentially endanger the people who she interviewed, as the military intelligence watched and followed her throughout her various journeys.  And it would, at the very least, make future visits to Burma impossible, at least so long as the current regime remains in power.

The idea of searching for someone who doesn’t want to be found seems like a fun project, like solving a Rubik’s cube.  I can easily imagine a documentary.  I would call it “Finding Emma Larkin in Thailand” in the spirit of “Searching for Bobby Fischer.” But then what?  Assuming one were successful, it would only be the right thing to do to keep her identity secret.  So, I suppose, one would have to keep the film in the can until such a time that it wouldn’t matter if her identity were exposed.  That would either mean until the world is a much safer place or her soul departs her body.  One would hope the former came sooner and the latter a long time later.