Blonde Abroad [Personal Narrative]
“Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it.” - Eudora Welty
Life is a series of highways and backroads and alleys and subways, at least for those of us willing and brave to show up. The interstate will certainly get you to some sort of destination, and maybe faster, but one will miss so much of what shapes us, such as adventure and surprise, newly found sitesm sweet pictorial moments and random encounters that evolve into life-long friends. And in travel, we learn that wrong turns, missed flights and delayed trains teach us a lot about ourselves and often how to find our way back to ourselves, more than any self help book or good therapy session could.
I grew up in a small town, Clarksdale, in the Mississippi Delta. It is perhaps best known for its Blues history and is also a treasure trove of really good story tellers and writers. The small town was one big ‘family’ built on trust and loyalty, so neighbors’ unlocked doors were gateways to their personal libraries, which held pages of rare books, past and current newspaper clippings and sometimes manuscripts by those taking a whirl at his or her own novel. Tennessee Williams spent time in Clarksdale, actually in the same neighborhood where I lived as a child, and other writers like John Grisham held book signings and lectures in our small town library.
Rooted in story tellers and books, I gravitated towards many writers, but I discovered Ernest Hemingway in my high school creative writing course, a suggestion by my teacher Mary Thompson. I connected with his short, direct language and also his dreamy travels down into the Caribbean, where he would eventually build a life filled with fishing adventures and friends, represented in his masterpieces like The Old Man and the Sea. In time, I would coincidentally or because of some mystic creative seed, find much of my adult life and work in the Caribbean, too.
Havana, in particular, would become a full life with a bicycle, a local beautician, and a frequented nearby, outdoor market for organic fruits and vegetables grown in farms 30-50 miles outside of town and hauled in by truck daily. An introverted-extrovert, I made an effort to friend many Cubans and also ex-pats from Canada and Europe, mostly journalists and photographers in the Caribbean on assignment. I became so familiar with Havana that I know its signless city streets like the back of my hand and through many experiences, I feel completely and wholeheartedly at home in this land. There is no dearth of music, performing and visual arts on that funky island, and the pace is nice and slow, clocks dismissed for wake up calls and even meetings and dinners lingering way past midnight. In the early 2000’s, it was a perfect vortex to go off the grid due to limited cell phone and internet access and scarce electricity, power grids being cut at night. Sometimes, nights would be filled and buzzing with with friends at long dinners at ex-pat’s homes in East Havana or at local clubs for salsa. Counter, other nights were quiet in my Central Havana apartment, window units drowning out most pedestrian noise. My bedroom defaulted into a little cocoon to read, write, be and do a lot of work on self.
I was, as my mother said, “an unusually Independent child.” My first introduction to Latin America was a Mexico mission trip as a teenager, and I, on my own, packed my suitcase, raised funds to go, figured out the currency exchange upon arrival, and called my father — collect — at his furniture store from time to time to update him on the trip and also share my well being. As a blonde abroad with perhaps intrinsically woven instincts, independence and curiosity made for the willingness to see some new things, even at such a young age. As I continued to travel Latin America in adulthood, certainly, I learned some great fundamental tools along the way: how to precisely pack a backpack for a three week adventure, wash a sundress in a bucket to be dried on a porch clothesline by a sun that hangs larger (and hotter!) in a Caribbean sky, and learn that a Canadians always knows how to find a good black market cell phone if you lose yours. Traveling alone taught me, by default, to make new friends exactly where I was in life and place, pick up new books and at least try to read Pablo Neruda in Spanish, and figure out if or if not an exchanged currency will indeed buy that piece of jewelry that will perfectly commemorate the trip. And travel experiences, more than anything, also taught me more deeply about myself and to rely on myself. In other words, how to thrive and survive on my own. Through travel, I have also learned that God is everywhere, and in good conscience and with relentless patience, He will guide and protect you. And most importantly, you can always love and respect your roots and you can also wish to wander and wonder to far away places and learn new things. In other words, it is OK to have roots — and wings.
I remember once I was alone in the depths of the Caribbean and a small child was in awe and touched my pale skin and blonde hair, never having seen these things. And for a moment I contemplated what and why in world I had traveled so far away from home and so deep into a culture unfamiliar and uncertain, maybe even dangerous. But once I got my bearings and caught my breath, I remembered and drilled down on the fact that life is not necessarily a series of conundrums, it is a series of paradoxes, and often we come closer to self by first going away.
