The matter of mattering

Yesterday, while waiting for the elevator, I looked out the window down onto the street below. I was up so high that people looked small, like toys, with their briefcases and sneakers and coats flapping in the autumn wind.

I wonder, how many times does someone see me from a distance?

I don't really mean watching me as an individual, as someone that has been attached to a specific identity. I don’t mean attraction or curiosity or being noticed, but rather the opposite of relevance.

How many times am I, say, on a Ferry on the San Francisco Bay while someone is looking at the boat from a car driving across the Golden Gate Bridge?

How many times does someone lying on the beach see the plane I'm in slowly move across the arch of blue sky in his span of vision?

How many times has someone taken a photograph and caught a fragment of me as I move across the frame? How many albums do I live in as even less than a stranger, the tip of my shoe intruding on a picture, a brown blur caused by a curly strand of my hair ruining an otherwise perfect family shot?

How many times does someone look down and notice people look like toys, with their briefcases and sneakers and coats flapping in the autumn wind; and realize they not only seem small, but trivial, deceived in their sweet sense of self importance, foolish, really, to be hurrying along as if their efforts really amounted to anything?

What I mean is, how many times is one of those minuscule, ant sized people way down below me?

All that glitters

I recently found myself at a shoe store, staring at a pair of crinkled metallic gold shoes. I'm not the kind of person who owns crinkled metallic gold shoes, and my first thought was "Wow. Those are kind of ugly". My second thought was "I have to have them". I apparently have alter-personalities living inside me that I don't know very well.

I carried the metallic gold shoes around the store while I looked at other things. I am not an impulse shopper so the part of me that thought they were ugly did not really take the part of me that had to have them very seriously. Until I walked up to the cash register and paid for them.

Now my new metallic gold shoes sit in my closet, in a world of gray, brown and navy blue clothes. I can see them peeking out of their shoe compartment. They are completely out of place, devilish, defiant. I wink at them before reaching for my trusty brown boots.

I haven't worn my new metallic gold shoes yet, but one day I will. I can't wait to see where they take me.

Anywhere

I love train stations. I know they are crowded and dirty but I love the movement and the people. I always harbor the secret sense that, like the song, I can walk up to the counter and order a ticket for the first train going anywhere.

I love traveling by train, too. I like the compartments, and looking at the scenery, the fields and trees and empty buildings and abandoned factories with broken windows.

I love looking at other passengers. The girl with the stripped stockings and huge black shoes reading a book in French. The man who brings his partner a drink that they ceremoniously prepare with soda water and lemon. Once it’s ready, they silently clap before the first sip. The family of four sitting next to us. I see the mother unpack enough food for an army: sliced apples with peanut butter, potato chips, sandwiches, drinks. The boy looks at the screen on his iPod, puts his feet up on the seat and moves to a beat I cannot hear.

When it gets dark, I look out and only see my reflection on the window – a ghost of my face, the orbs of my brown eyes looking back at me and a whooshing image of trees in the background as backdrop.

Cinematic overload

I am watching a movie. Just when I’m gripped by the story, just when I can’t tear my eyes away from the screen, just when every little creak in the house makes me jump ten feet, it happens again.

I realize I’ve already seen it.

In the most fortunate cases, I remember the general theme in a vague sort of way and just can’t recall the details. But most often I have no clue at all that I’m watching it for the second time until…well, until I get a sense of too certain déjà vu. And then I remember certain scenes, but not critical things like how it ends (or even who the bad guy is.)

Should I be worried that this is the obvious consequence of watching too many movies? A critical case of cinematic overload?

Should I be concerned about my declining memory?

Or (my pick) should I make a list of my favorite movies ever and delight in watching them again, knowing for certain that I’m going to love them?

I mean, look at the bright side. Who better to suggest something good to me than someone who knows my taste as well as I do?

No need to send me movie recommendations. I seem to have it covered.

Brain lag

Last week, Luca and I almost had a car accident. It was about 7:00 a.m. and we were driving along Highway 1, with the Pacific Ocean on our left and the mountains on our right. It was slightly foggy and the road was deliciously silent. Suddenly, a deer leaped out in front of us. Even before Luca swerved, it was out of sight.

This week I’m in Mexico City. Forget all the words you just read above – from “driving along” to “Pacific Ocean” to “Mountains” to “calm” to “quiet”. I assure you there will be no deer interfering. This place is surreal, even to my Mexico City born eyes; a live wire of people and color and smog and cacophony and energy. A boy is juggling balls at the stoplight, then asking for money.

If our bodies need time to adjust to jet lag, what about brain lag? We weren’t meant to move so quickly from one location to another. What are the side effects of this sudden, dramatic change in surroundings?

Strange dreams, for sure. Waking up completely disoriented (a condition that in my case often lingers for the rest of the day). Being just a tiny bit out of touch with reality (another lingering condition). Feeling as alive as this place. Looking at the world with wonder.

"For my part” said Robert Louis Stevenson “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."

Good and bad

I think I am a good traveler because:
- I don't tire easily
- I am curious about new things to eat (as long as it’s not something soft and furry with big, beautiful eyes and long lashes such as rabbit or alpaca; and nobody's intimate parts such as tripe, testicles or brains.)
- Within reason, I have a bug resistant stomach
- I can function fairly well on little sleep
- I like to get up early
- When strangers try to guess where I'm from, they venture Italy, Greece, Romania, Argentina, Iran, Turkey, Spain, Ecuador, Israel - even India. In other words, I don't stick out unless I'm in an Asian or Nordic country
- I can make myself understood pretty much anywhere
- I'm a really good packer
- I travel light
- I rarely complain
- I'm fairly tolerant of heat and cold
- I can walk pretty much all day
- I'm punctual
- I handle changes and delays well
- I want to see everything
- Wanting to rest doesn't make me feel guilty, even if I might be missing something
- I keep myself entertained on flights or long drives
- I’m a good copilot
- I carry my own stuff
- I trust that I can figure it out
- I'm easily amused
- I see the glass half full

I think I could be a better traveler because:
- Someone needs to help me with actual travel arrangements, as I have zero tolerance for "if you'd like to make a reservation, please press one".
- As much as I love to go, I always find it hard to leave home
- Except for dinner, I don't do night life (although I was irresistibly charmed into going dancing in Peru)
- I don't like noise
- I don't like crowds
- Mosquitoes make me crazy
- I get hungry
- I get thirsty
- I always need a restroom
- I can't skip a meal
- I cannot lie in the beach all day
- I don't consider shopping a pastime
- My sense of direction is never where I think I left it

And you? How are you a good or bad traveler?

How dare we?

On the cover of the most recent Time Magazine is Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa, who founded the Missionaries of Charity. A Catholic nun who won a Nobel Peace Prize for her work caring for the poor, sick, orphaned and dying in India. A Nobel Peace Prize!

Ten years after her death, her biggest secret is revealed. Previously undisclosed letters show that she spent almost 50 years without sensing the presence of God. On the outside, she prayed. She dedicated her life to someone she could not find.

Her letters speak of torture and darkness, coldness, pain; emptiness so great that nothing touched her soul.

I guess every believer doubts at some point or another. (And every doubter believes at some point or another.) But this astonishing woman never stopped working in God’s name. In the middle of all that emptiness, she trusted him completely.

As stunning as I find this, the sentence that broke my heart was “Please destroy any letters or anything I have written”. After everything she did, didn’t she deserve that we at least honor that?