A Few Traveling Reflections

We traveled this month primarily for pleasure — we were celebrating an anniversary and work hard never to take such roadside altars for granted. Since we determined early on that the best gifts we can give each other are experiential rather than material — durable as only the ephemeral can be — we travel. And we do our best to pay attention...to whatever finds it’s way into our sphere of senses. We plan, but loosely; leaving porous places in the days where serendipities can seep in — as, enabled, they invariably will. Which is also to acknowledge that, beyond the simple pleasure of it, travel is intrinsically enlarging. We return as different people.

And so it is, as those different people, that we have returned from a few weeks in France. Aside from the pleasures, what did we notice? With apologies for the jetlag still cobwebbing my brain, a few random thoughts come to mind.

Thought 1:  I came to a new respect and appreciation for my high school friends who studied French. I didn’t. And so it was that, as a language, I found French to be melodically beautiful but functionally inscrutable. I never succeeded in differentiating individual words within the aural sweep of a speaker’s sentences. As a people, however, I found the French to be surprisingly, generously gracious. I say “surprisingly” because we ventured into this excursion having internalized and braced ourselves for the oft-cited slander of French aloofness to — or outright disdain toward — tourists in general and non-French speakers in particular. Our experience was the exact opposite. At every turn we were shown kindness, hospitality, charity and grace — from the jogger in Avignon who ran past us, only to return to ask if she could help us two obviously lost travelers trying to find the train station; to the train conductors who showed us how to fill in the blanks on our tickets instead of charging us the penalty for not having already done so; from the patient shopkeepers who helped us count out unfamiliar currency, to the miscellaneous passersby who volunteered translations. We were given rides, welcomed into homes, and made to feel like family. We were constantly humbled, grateful and profoundly indebted to this consistent kindness to strangers.

Thought 2:   Kindness is one thing; accommodation is quite another — or maybe accommodation is simply kindness at an institutional level. Every day of our travels we were as grateful for as we were dependent upon the bilingual provisions Europeans make — in public spaces like elevators, train stations, airports and museums — but in more intimate ones as well, like shops and sidewalk cafes. Menus commonly included English translations. Announcements were routinely given in multiple languages. Brochures  were always diversely translated. We were never far away from someone or some tool that would help us bridge the language gap. We were utterly and completely at the mercy of these considerations. And I was sobered by the realization of how seldom we, in this country, reciprocate. Paralyzingly mono-lingual, we condemn foreign travelers to their own resources, in so doing condemning ourselves to our own prejudiced or clueless insularity. That they routinely succeed is more to the credit of those travelers multi-lingualism than our hospitable provision. Thank you, France, for extending your hand to help us navigate the stumbling divides.

Thought 3:   I love our home, our land, our heritage, and it was, in any number of ways, warming to return after such a wonderful excursion. That said, it was relief and delight to be away; to gain distance from and perspective on the roiling stomach of this profoundly ill American culture. Left or right, angry or appalled, righteous or repulsed, surely we can agree that we are together in a very unhealthy civic space. Europeans certainly have their own problems and cultural viruses, but blessedly they went out of their way to screen us from them. Meanwhile, in their keeping, we could cleanse ourselves — ever so briefly — of the moral, political and social vomit that is drenching us these days. And now back, to consider fresh avenues for wading restoratively back into the stench.

Thought 4:  I was, through all these steps, mindful of things we, in our country, do well. As one example, I don’t really know how people with mobility limitations function in the areas we visited. Rarely is there a ramp. Routinely are there steps. Occasionally there are handrails, but just as often you wobble at your own risk. One of our apartments required stooping and almost comically careful contortions to access. Anyone with crutches or a wheelchair would be sleeping in the courtyard. We have passed laws to look after such loved ones. Where we visited in France I suppose such people just stay home.

On another occasion we were spending an unexpected afternoon learning from an older gentleman. In the course of the conversation he lamented the exodus of young people from France where they are given little room to grow. “We don’t value young people,” he said with a sigh, “and so they leave.” I could have countered that in our country the situation is reversed — we revere only the technological facility of the young and ignore the wisdom of age — but either way there is room to improve.

Which ultimately is the residual taste in my mouth from our time away.  Yes, we had lots of fun away.  Yes, we looked forward to returning home.  But having returned I even moreso than before bemoan the precious time we waste as a country in self-congratulatory boasts of our own greatness — “we are the best in the world,” blah, blah, blah — when it would be so much more productive...and interesting...to explore and lean toward what we might yet learn and how we might grow still better. It’s fine to keep in mind how far we’ve come; even better to be resiliently honest about where we can still beneficially go.

With that, I think I'll take another nap.

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