40 in forty: Travel as much as you can

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More than a decade ago, I went to East Africa. It was a remarkable three weeks in southern Kenya with a boy I loved. He spoke Swahili fluently, and I knew even then that I was experiencing a rare trip, a life-changing one I'd never forget.

In Nairobi, I ate sukuma and ugali (sauteed greens and corn meal mush) and roasted ears of maize sold from street vendors behind steaming carts. I drank cold Tuskers and shot pool. I scooped doro wat with doughy injera as an Ethiopian belly-dancer beguiled us.

On safari, I saw the Big 5. I visited an elephant orphanage and saw the wildebeest and flamingo migrations. Thousands of rickety-looking animals fording a river because instinct told them they must, even as crocs lay in wait. A whole lake turned pink by plumage. A black rhino and her darling baby. Great cats stretching and tending their young.

On the small island of Lamu, I devoured curry made from just-caught fish, vats of fresh "joo-eece" (juice) from the fruit vendor next to our inn, and chicken with fiery pili-pili sauce at a the home of a lovely Muslim woman, Hosna, the boy knew.

After lunch she invited me to try on one of her burqas before taking a stroll through the neighborhood. "Everyone knows you're white and foreign," she said, even though I was covered head to toe. "They look at your feet. Can you feel them staring?"

Was it strange? Yes. Was it a tremendous learning experience? Absolutely. Do travel and trying almost always enlarge our senses of the myriad possibilities and respect for differences in the world? Most definitely.

I remember being spat at while living in Amsterdam. An American friend (living in Amsterdam) and I were walking through a park, and a Dutch woman heard us speaking English. She spat and my friend retorted in angry Dutch, stunning the woman and relieving me. 

I remember being stuck at the horrid Holešovice train station in Prague, waiting and waiting and waiting. I called it "Holese-shit" and Tom and I laughed for days. The baths in Budapest, the disappointing Sacher tort in Vienna offset completely by the magnificent Klimts at the eponymous museum and the Muchas at his museum too.

I can still taste the rhubarb pie at that diner somewhere by Woodstock, VT. I remember the post office in Quechee, not far from the gorge. The redwoods in Northern Cal, the lunar-like beaches north of San Diego. 

I remember accidentally getting off to TGV train in Biarritz instead of San Sebastian. Shit. I spoke Spanish, not French. My friend was waiting for me so we could haul it to Bilbao to see the new Guggenheim museum there. I cobbled together a few phrases dredged from the depths of my mind, got to Spain, ate incredible tortilla and reveled in the opalescent undulations of Gehry's titanium masterpiece. The Rioja wasn't bad either.

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It seems to me that as people age, they take one of two paths: the safe, familiar one, or the road less traveled. I plan to always take the latter, and I beseech you to do the same in all ways that you can. Do not close off, don't limit yourself. As best you can, speak to locals. Drive, walk, fly, train, in your own country and far beyond. Jump, ask, learn, try, be humbled and uncomfortable, enjoy something you didn't know you would. Keep growing!

Travel is a superb education, possibly the best. We leave tomorrow for Rome, and although I'm exhausted (so tired that I again forgot the correct documentation for the DMV which, naturally, I only realized once there. For the third time. I still don't have a license. I give up until we get back.), I can't wait to jump the border and fly toward a new adventure.

When in Rome...

Kindness and grace: 40 in forty

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Yesterday was absurd. I went to the DMV twice-it's a half-hour drive each way- and still do not have a new license. Fairly defeated upon leaving the second time, nearly four hours after arriving for the first, I decided to try and do something productive so headed to J.Crew to make a return. As I parked, I misjudged the curb and punctured my tire on its blade-like edge. 

As I sank to the ground with the front right part of my car, a man came over and said, "You know you popped your tire, right?" 

Ah, yes. I suspected as much, not least because of the whistle-whoosh the air made as it rapidly flew from the jagged hole in my sidewall.

Needless to say, I did not get to J.Crew. I did, however, learn all about sizing tires during the forty-minute wait for roadside assistance to arrive and was able to call and find a nearby bodyshop with one tire that would fit my car. 

After Vick attached my spare and put the torn tire and scratched rim in my trunk, I headed south to the Tenleytown Shell station where Jim helped me immediately and taught me a ton as he worked. I ate lunch-a crumbly granola bar for which I paid entirely too much-while I watched.

Later, I went by our old house to check on a few things, and I found this. 

People, how on earth would that catch a curtain to its right?

I later made the worst dinner in the history of the world. All in it was a wash of a day, but I was reminded of two important things that I wish to share.

40 in forty wisdom:

  • Always carry reading material with you. You NEVER know when you'll have multiple hours at a DMV, in a car with a flat tire, or in a lengthy line at the market, bus stop or anywhere really. I may have wasted four hours and still need to return to the godforsaken DMV, but I did read a few chapters of my book, and that was nice.
     
  • There is kindness and grace all around you. Be open to it and give it back. As I later told the boys, I could have folded inward yesterday, pissed to the nines about the time and money and energy I didn't want to spend in the ways I had to spend it.

    Or I could take the chance to learn about tire size when the first shop I called taught me how over the phone so that I didn't head their way if they didn't have what I needed. I could thank that nice man then and also when he recommended I call Shell next "because they're good."

    I could shake Vick's hand, even though he said it was too dirty, and thank him for his kindness in helping me so quickly.

    I could smile at Jim and listen as he taught me that every time someone changes my tires they should remove all the rust and sediment from the rim before putting on the new tire because otherwise, the rubber may not seal properly. ("Most people don't because they are lazy and don't care, but it's safer and better this way, so ask.") I could ask Jim how long he's been doing car work because he sure knows a lot, and I could accept his kind offer to refill my spare and check the pressure in my remaining tires. I could thank him profusely for everything and for charging me only a reasonable and fair amount and nothing more.

    I could be grateful for being able to afford this surprise car-work and that my kids were happily and safely at school instead of being lugged around with me.

And so I did and so I was.