Summer's Tales (6/1/2009)

Somewhere over the South China Sea, during hour three of a flight from Singapore to Seoul, I needed to stretch my legs. Groggily, I walked back to the galley, where I met a Canadian woman. Let's call her Amber.

We were two of the few gringos on the flight. She smiled. “Where you headed?”, she asked.

“Oh…” I replied nonchalantly. “Mongolia.”

Her face dropped. She almost screamed.

To me, Mongolia wasn’t exotic – another assignment, another hotel, another per diem. Having spent the previous week in Jakarta traffic, I was approaching Ulaanbaatar with the same zest as a trip to Chicago. While I wasn’t looking, my perspective had changed.

At twenty-eight and with forty-two ticks into the Traveler’s Century Club, I’ve racked up more travel stories than most accumulate over a lifetime. And, you, dear readers, have told me how much you enjoy them.

You flatter me, honestly.

I say this because, truth be told, my travel experiences aren’t particularly earth shaking. I haven’t lived in Asia surviving on kimchee and my rugged looks. I haven’t joined the Peace Corps and ridden out monsoon season in a tin shack. I haven’t caused or witnessed politically seismic events (as far as I can tell you), hang glided over piranha-infested rivers or hunted lion armed only with a spear. I haven’t been to a World Cup or World Series, crashed a Siberian wedding, retraced the path of Captain Cook, or served as Chief of the Tribe of Sixteen Nations at a Maori hangi. I haven’t taken a train from Boston to Patagonia, and am not one to drive across Sudan in search of meaning. I even survived Vietnam without eating a single shrimp.

In the absence of riveting plot, I am left with travelogues laced with puns and pop culture, jabs at the Limbaugh-thumping right, and overdependence on imagery. When in doubt, tell them what the sun is doing. Everyone loves the sun.

Yet somehow, you tell me, it works.

But I want more. As stories progress, I notice that more and more begin with “This one time, in Tajikistan…”, “You know, in Serbia…”, or “You should totally do New Zealand,” I want to explore for myself how these stories and experiences have developed a deeper meaning. This, as Blair Sheppard would put it – twice – is my tapestry.

How did a late night in New York crack my shy cocoon? Why are European train stations my favorite places to peoplewatch? Why is Dushanbe, Tajikistan less weird than Greenville, North Carolina?

And so, a summer project was born. I want to know where these travels have led, why they mean what they do. With no travels scheduled (a scary notion), I want to re-examine those old photos, the hokey scrapbooks, pore through that slutty passport. Instead of the politically imagery-ridden travelogue (“Hi from South Africa. Apartheid sucks. It’s sunny.”), I am going to write about the 11, or 12, or 13 (because 10 is lame) moments on my traveler’s resume. Not the glitziest, most expensive – or, get real, the most romantic – but those I continue to feel today.

As a blogger, I want to test my hand at writing longer bits and recreating scenes from lives past. As a traveler, I want to remember.

Join me.