Moving through the World Like a Child

The other day I was thinking about how to help my students write in scene. Some of them put things that happen before they really happen. For example, "On the steps stood Marjorie Cooper" even though the narrator has never met Marjorie before and can't really be sure yet that this is Majorie since he/she hasn't been introduced.

I was trying to think of a way to help my students think about the scenes they are writing and help the writer to see and experience the moment as the characters see and experience in. Then I thought that the best way to write narrative, and also to travel, is to move through the world like a child. With a child's sense of wonder and surprise. To move as if you've never been somewhere before, even if you've been there a thousand times. As if you are experiencing everything for the first time.

This is actually something that my husband has often said about me, and not always in a complimentary way. Every village we travel through, every painting we see, every meal eaten. It is as if I've never done these things before or been to these places.

This summer when we were living outside of San Sebastian in a little fishing village and big boats would float past our living room window. Every time a boat went by, I shout to my husband, "Look, a boat!" It didn't matter how many times a boat went by, each time I was enthralled. And truthfully so was he.

So I was thinking about how to help my students and it came to me that this child's sense of wonder if a very good way to be a writer as well. To allow yourself as a writer to still be surprised, to walk into a room as if you've never walked into that room before. To meet a person as if you are seeing them for the first time.

Recently in the news I read the strange case of a man who could form no new memories. While I wouldn't envy this man, I do think it is an intriguing notion to wake up each day afresh, to do everything as if you've never done it before. I think it is that child's sense of wonder that makes for good writers and good travelers.

And, after all, children are people who are able to live very much in the present, unplagued by thoughts of the past or concerns for the future. Perhaps that's really the thing about travel - for me at any rate. It allows me to be in the moment, present, wherever I am. As if I am six years old again. And I am happiest when I am there. Tomorrow we head to Montreal. A place we've been to many times, but I'll see it with fresh eyes as if I've never been before.

Blue Heaven

Blue Heaven is just my favorite place to eat and hang out in Key West. Love their breakfasts, their lunches, their drinks and the cats and the chickens and the inspirational message on the paper dispenser in the bathroom (The Magic is In Your Mind)and the rumors about Hemingsways boxing ring and the funny shower. But mainly love the food and everyone is nice. Also tried their new place on Higgs Beach - Salute. I feel as if I'd been dropped somewhere in Italy, maybe the Amalfi Coast. Loved it. Go. Enjoy!

Inner Maps

On Sunday I flew down to Key West (where it is the coldest is has been since 1919). I've been here many times for short stays - maybe six or seven. I was down last year as well. The first thing I do when I land in Key West is rent a bicycle and I spend my days, when I am not writing, peddling around.

But when I arrived on Sunday, it was as if I'd never been here. It was a very strange feeling. I couldn't remember the roads, the houses, the restaurants. I couldn't remember anything. But slowly a kind of internal geography took over. I remembered that the bike shop I like to rent from is at the intersection of Simonton and something.

As I walked in that direction, I felt this inner map forming inside my mind. I started to know where things were. The bike shop was at Simonton and Truman. The butterfly conservatory at the end of Duval. Hemingways house on Whitehead. Then peddling along the ocean I saw a sign for Vernon Street and took it because I knew I'd lived at the base of it when I came to KW one year. And right beside it was Louis' Backyard, a restaurant that brought back memories of one very wine-sotted night. After an hour or so a place that had at first seemed unfamiliar returned. It had taken shape in my mind and I remembered where everything was.

It is the same with faces, isn't it. We walk into a restaurant and someone looks familiar. A face takes shape in our minds. We recall five, ten years ago. This person was a neighbor, the boyfriend of a friend. And suddenly a world of memories comes up around this face. You recall everything (a meal shared, an argument never resolved) and you decide to say hello. Or look away. With places I like to say hello. Slowly it seemed.

At home behind a couch we have a large plastic bin and in it is every map for every place I think I've ever been. I keep them all here and when we are heading somewhere, anywhere, I go through that bin. Prague, Montreal, Palermo, Guanajuato. My mother used to joke when she'd see me looking at maps. "Oh, oh," she'd say, "she's going to travel again." And she was usually right. I'd get restless. My legs would start to roam.

Today in Key West it is very cold, but I'm going to bike around all day. There's an old fort I like and I want to go through the old Bahama part of town. Maybe stop for lunch at Blue Heaven if it's not too cold to eat outside (which it probably is). I'm not taking a map with me. I don't have to. It's all inside.

from Tennessee Williams...

"I can write anywhere, but I write better in Key West."

Wishing you and yours a magical, mysterious 2010!!!

Travel Envy

I have a friend who is heading off to India for a month and she's invited me to come over and help her pack. "You're an expert packer," she says. Briefly I ponder hiding liquids and sharp objects in her luggage. I've just bought my daughter a ticket to Egypt - graduation present. And my friend who lives in Tokyo says he's spending January in Thailand.

I know that envy is one of the seven deadly sins so I've tried to keep it in check. Freud would be proud of me, but, when it comes to journeys, I have to admit it - I have travel envy. I'm never really happy for the friend who got that great assignment to Istanbul or is spending her sabbatical in France. For my last sabbatical I broke my leg and spent it on my sofa as my daughter wandered through Fez, where I was to join her.

I try to hide it, but when R takes off each Christmas for Vieques or V rents that place in Key West, I want them to slip me into their suitcase. I want to go along too. I don't want to read the blog from the Loire Valley or the magnificent photos of spice markets Kate sent home. I want to leave now. But of course I can't. Not this moment anyway. I still have about fifteen portfolios to read and evaluations to write. I am deluged with assorted requests. I feel as if it's winter in Fargo and I have to keep digging myself out.

Meanwhile our neighbors across the street, who've been living for the past year in an old olive press in the South of France have returned. They share with me that unfortunately they had to move from one end of the olive press into a place on the other end. I am trying to find the unfortunate part in this as I nod my head in faux sympathy.

People can tell me about their film deals, the third child that's on the way, the fact that they just dropped twenty pounds, I am genuinely happy for these people. I think good for them. But just tell me that you are heading off on a bicycle through Sicily and I start to fall apart. Once I could just pack a duffel and walk out the door.

The other day my cousin told me this joke. A priest, a minister and a rabbi were discussing when life begins. The priest said at conception. The minister when the child is born. And the rabbi said when the dog dies and the kids leave home. Sadly our beloved dog, Snowball, has recently died and our daughter has sort of left home, though she occupies a studio apartment in our house. So I am thinking it is time to just pack up and go.

I was thinking that thought about two weeks ago. I felt as if I couldn't sit still. I found myself, staring at random maps. Going back to Dr. Freud, there is something about adolescent turmoil (which it seems I can't grow out of) and the desire to escape. The adolescent, struck with a barage of emotions, cannot contain himself/herself. I too feel stuck, my own emotions bounding. So I woke up one day last week and turned to my husband. "I want to go somewhere," I said. In fact I told him I had to go somewhere.

"Where?" and then I said, "Istanbul."

It seemed like a good place to test my travel legs again, crossing back and forth between Europe and Asia. So I booked passage. I'm going to cruise the Bosphorus, perhaps journey up to the Black Sea. This is a part of the world my ancestors came from.

My legs are restless. I know it's a syndrome, but in my case it's a compulsion. I don't want to go packing for my friends and imagine my daughter, negotiating the medinah in Fez. Travel envy, like real estate envy or money envy or even penis envy, is just one form of misery we have available to us in this world. But at least with travel envy (certainly unlike penis envy) I can actually plan and pack my bag and walk out the door.

More than just wanting to do this. I have to do it. As with writing, travel is both a pleasure and a compulsion. I am echoing here the 94 year old artist, Carmen Herrara, whose work has just now received recognition. I like this idea of something being both pleasure and inner necessity.

Yesterday at a memorial service for a beloved teacher someone read these words from a Hebrew prayer: "Birth is a beginning. Death a destination. And life is the journey in between." Time, I suppose, is awasting. And so I must be on the road.