A preparatory note: I am about to be gleeful.
Happy two-year anniversary to meeeeee!!!!!!!!
Apologies. I had great intentions for an anniversary
post. I intended, firstly, to do an
anniversary post on my one-year anniversary. Second, I had intended to do it in
a classy fashion. Then, once that deadline passed and classy ideas and
motivation failed me, I intended to do a 10,000 views celebratory post. But
that didn’t happen either.
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| wheeeeeeeee! |
And now, though the two-year anniversary mark has
already passed me by on the other side of the world and both classiness and
conciseness will undoubtedly escape me, I am following through!
Two years ago I started this blog with this little
number about the purgatory of travel time. I invite you to read it and beg you
not to mock me for immaturity. It was poorly written when I was—if I recall—head
over heels horrified at finding myself alone and friendless in a country whose
language I didn’t know well on an ill-planned whim, the validity about which my
parents had wisely expressed their doubts.
Poorly crafted though my first blog post was, I hold
it close to my heart for the idea that I tried and failed to express. I intend
to try again. Bear with me, my bears of little brains!
Travel is a chimera—a Proteus?—but only in the sense
that it’s maddeningly difficult for me to wrap my mental hands around. Actually,
Travel-land doesn’t change; it does the opposite. The world around it changes—the
destination and departure point, the people greeting or goodbye-ing me—but the
purgatory of Travel-land remains the same. The rhythm, the people, the signs
and walkways. It’s like culture, except more like its antithesis: an
anti-culture here on nondescript, uncomfortable chairs, between gates, waiting
in snaking lines brimming with luggage and people of all shapes and sizes all
going different directions in the same manner.
I can tell I’m failing at this again. Perhaps those
of you out there traveling know what I’m trying to say. You, too, breathe a
sigh of anxious relief upon approaching the check-in counter. Perhaps you, too,
feel happy amidst the sea of Everyone Else going their Own Way. The stress of
travel is like the stress of a family reunion, and the airport a sort of
homecoming.
But that means that you, too, know that it’s not a
place for staying. It’s not a Right place for us. It stays the same—a little
ineffable, a little stand-offish—while you are made to constantly change. A
stint is fine, enjoyable even, as you fade away from the invisible strength of
life’s undertow, but it reeks of aimless waiting.
Intentions of glee one minute and somber nostalgia
the next! Perhaps the chimera of travel is me. Perhaps, perhaps perhaps—enough of
perhaps! I intend to finish this post on a properly gleeful, celebratory note:
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| This is a metaphor. Piglet is this blog. Tigger is the universe. |
What started as a half-assed supplement to a college
core requirement has turned into two years of writing accountability, baffling
encouragement, and rewarding connections. Mom, Dad: I know you skim when I
get wordy but someday I’ll be able to pare down the extra words; I promise.
Some of you have been with me from the beginning (I’m looking at you, Pennings,
you wonderful) and a great many of you have been a such an encouragement to me
(whoever is reading in Latvia, for instance, and Russia). You gorgeous people
in Singapore and Germany and Thailand:
Thank you.
Blessings.
Really—Blessings.
I pray with all my heart that our God of both
justice and mercy grants you and me the joy of humility, the peace of patience,
and the hope of His Word.
Blast. That was another tone shift, wasn't it? Chimera: me.
One way to pass the time in these travel places is to look for clues and then pin stories upon sharing your space and time. Kieran is especially good at this.
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