Stereotypes exist for a reason. As much as you have to be diligent in not automatically ascribing certain characteristics or preferences to a person based only on biographical facts about them, I find it somehow pleasing when people conform to their national archetypes (discounting of course the purely negative stereotypes). Continue reading
I’ve written briefly, or maybe not so briefly (and things are about to get significantly less brief), of my love of the modern ruins of the Romania/Bulgaria. Continue reading
Thinking on the charm of visiting some tiny mountain village, where tradition lives on and people live as they have for hundreds and hundreds of years. Goats. Chickens. Handmade things. This, I realize, does not appeal to me. Continue reading
I’ve had my jacket for years.
My strategic redeployment in the face of harsh winter is complete, leaving me warm if not entirely dry in south-western Turkey. The weather has actually been most cooperative so far, raining at night and before we leave in the morning, and leaving us beautiful sunny days. My current traveling companion, Jun-E, and I have taken full advantage. In four short days in Fethiye, we’ve managed several ruined cities, much walking, a beautiful beach and coastal road via scooter, and a ridiculously secluded monastery, among delicious food and other random adventures.But I’ll do a travelogue next post, in the interest of keeping things organized. First, a few sweeping generalizations based on my short time here (augmented by talking with Jun-e, who’s had a few weeks).
I’ve been thinking more and more about the kind of travel I want to do. Alone in a foreign-language speaking country, you’re something of an isolated bubble. There are aspects of this which I very much enjoy. A lot of the inputs of the world are censored out by default. Instead of noticing snippets of things as I move through the world, I see only the larger picture, abstracted and heavily coloured by my preconceptions and state of mind, though I try to not let this be the case.
An exhibit at the Tate Modern entirely captivated me tonight. It’s not often that I have much good to say about modern art, but this was something special. First off, the Tate’s main hall is a sight to behold. A massive, empty space, save for a narrow (relatively) viewing span supported by a few structural looking vertical girders. I passed through this area several times (and yet never managed to take a photo… please google, keeping in mind that it’s bigger than it looks, whichever photo you happen to be looking at), entering and moving between the Tate’s various galleries. Always, there was a group of people, sometimes running together in some sort of whirling pattern, sometimes sitting in random positions and arrangements, often singing a choral piece, though the music was unlike anything I’d really heard. Modern, I guess, and dissonant. With people passing through the group, it was never entirely clear who was performing and who viewing, and I’d often see people wander around and begin talking to someone sitting on the edge. Wander isn’t the right word here. They’d head straight for someone, as towards a friend who’d come to watch the piece.
When I was leaving the museum, I sat on the edge of the ramp for a few minutes to take in a song. As the song closed, I watched a young man in skinny jeans jog up the ramp (this took some time) and begin talking to someone. As I was finally deciding that this was part of the show, I turned back towards the performance to find a young woman standing beside me. She immediately launched into a soliloquy about sex and the meaning(lessness) thereof, and whether this meaning had to be based on the context of a relationship.. After a few minutes of intense, one-sided dialogue, she walked quickly off.
Three others approached me before I left. All were more like prompted conversations than soliloquies, and all were on intimate subjects. They were conversations you might have with a close friend. The women (only women approached me, though the performers were of mixed sex) spoke so plainly, so openly. Apart from the initial subject, the conversations did not feel staged, and the subjects, aside from being personal, were thought-provoking.
The second girl who approached me had been thinking, she told me, about the difference between having sex and making love. She wondered whether you could ever ‘just’ have se with someone whom you’d once made love or whether not feeling a connection you once felt meant that sex was simply off the table. The discussion turned from here to loss, and then to whether we romanticize the past, whether the phrase ‘you don’t know what you have until you lose it’ is really true, or whether you’re simply romanticizing. I’m not sure how long our conversation lasted. At the end, I apologized for not being able to offer any real advice, as I grapple with the same questions. She smiled and said that it was alright, that telling people what to do is easy, and besides, how could you give advice to a perfect stranger?
I wondered after if the performers tailored their subject in any way, or if it was happenstance that the young girl had social circle/friendship concerns, the barely-twenty-something questions on the meaning(less) of sex and the impact of a passionate meeting, the later-twenties girl questions about loss of love and the beautification of the past, and the middle-aged woman questions about herself being the person she wants to be. I’m likely reading too much into it, and it probably doesn’t make sense without relaying the conversations more fully (which I don’t think I can do), but I wonder.
I left the Tate with much to think about. Each of these conversations had raised interesting individual questions, and the performance as a whole had touched me. I recognize in my reaction the desire for meaningful connection, but there’s more to it. Each of these encounters was a slice of a person, deeper than you’d normally get with someone you just met, but not different in any other way, really. These slices give a clear picture, they create a person based on one interaction. I hugely enjoy these… sketches of people. And while thoroughly incomplete, I think these slices have value. I think that what you might talk about given one chance, your choice, and no repercussions, with a complete stranger in a bar says a lot about you.
These particular encounters were staged, but I get similar enjoyment out of the more usual brief encounters with strangers. On the tube after the Tate, a clearly stoned man hopped on, singing and air-guitaring loudly to the Beatles on his earbuds. He alighted after one stop. Earlier that day a friendly American (Tennesee maybe?) struck up a conversation with me, and give me an excellent tip about hiking in the UK. He, too, alighted after one stop. These slices are just as real, maybe moreso, and each leaves me with a happy memory, small as it may seem.
It may be my lifestyle choices, but I feel these kind of meetings happen more readily on the road, and it’s one of the reasons I love to travel. To share an intimate connection with another person, to delve deeply into a single facet of their personality or history or world view, and then leave, never knowing their last name, (and soon forgetting their first in any case), unable to track them down on Facebook, unable to continue that connection in any way. People are complex. They have layers, pasts, hopes, wishes, failings and weaknesses. They are mean and base and enlightened and charming and every other adjective you could possibly list, except, if you’re being honest, for perfect. But these people, these come-and-gone, eye-blink sketches of people, are perfect strangers.
Stumbled into a service yesterday, I forget what they call it.. the Eucharist? Sounds about right. Anyway, in some ancient but not particularly touristy church, in a seemingly somewhat normal (by this I mean: brick rowhouses, no giant glass skyscrapers, pub on the corner) piece of downtown London. Felt somewhat awkward intruding, but I figured I’d watch quietly from the outskirts if it was a Buddhist ceremony in Japan, so why not here. Sat at the back, stood when they stood, sat when they sat, and so on. Certainly gave me a more profound appreciation of church acoustics. The minister (priest?), with his classic British accent, was probably nothing special. But in such a church, with spectacular vaulted ceilings, it’s chairs nearly empty… His voice was sonorous. A message amplified by the careful work of many hands. There is a pleasant intensity to such a ceremony, and the history of it. Religion may be dying in the UK (as elsewhere), and I can’t say I’m sad to see it go, but it is good to be reminded of the positives that religion can bring. Besides the wonderful edifice, the few people there share a bond. They shook hands all around at the end of the ceremony, and while they certainly didn’t seem like friends (though I’m not sure I’d recognize the signs of British friendship), that small human contact with a stranger is more than many get in a day, especially in a place like central London, which has the usual big-city aloofness. I think the beauty is in the common purpose… there is something intrinsically appealing in seeing people come together to further an end, especially when that end doesn’t obviously, immediately benefit them. I realize that religion only half-fits this description, as fear of eternal damnation is certainly a selfish motive, but to the extent that people worship, and pray, and build these wonderful buildings, not because it is good for them individually, but because it is right, there is much goodness here.