They say you can’t take it with you. I have found that in terms of travel that is not true. I have always taken “it” with me. For a long time, I did not realize that I was carrying “it” with me wherever I went. I thought that I was traveling to experience new places, new people, new languages, and new cultures. I was going to see famous, infamous, and obscure sights. I was going to go from reading history in books, to experiencing history where it happened. I was going to escape the repetition and dullness of daily life by traveling to places that stimulated my curiosity. I was going to get away from it all and I thought I did. I did not notice anyone or anything following me. Then one day, I finally realized that I carried the world I thought I left behind within me.
You can take it with you. There is no finer example than the time I spent in Riga, Latvia. The weather was cold, humid, and blustery. The opposite of what it had been in Kyiv when I left there a day earlier. The climatic change led to me catching a terrible cold. Sore throat, fever, chills, clogged sinuses, I had caught an awful cold. The physical part of this cold would be mitigated with medication. The mental part was another matter altogether. It could not be cured by anything in a bottle. What I really needed was my mom. That might not sound like the most macho thing for a middle-aged man to say, but while lying in the bed at night fending off fever dreams, I wished that my mom would walk into the room. Her presence would have comforted me. She always did when I was a child. Now I was in Riga, as far from home in place and time as I had ever been. My mother would not be coming to check on me. This was the moment when I realized how much I relied on her. I carried my mother with me wherever I went, in sickness and in health.
Chilled – Autumn in Riga (Credit: Laurijs Svirskis)
Keeping Watch – In The Eyes of Strangers
I have spent an inordinate amount of time looking into stranger’s eyes. Behind ticket counters at train stations, at bakeries while picking up breakfast, during check-in at hotels, on numerous free tours, I searched in stranger’s eyes for affirmation. This is much more difficult in foreign countries where I cannot speak the language. I must look for signs. Perhaps a subtle warmth in the eyes, knowing glance, or hint of a smile. I did not need much more than that. That was exactly what I received on free tours in Bucharest and Bratislava, Prague and Pula, among many other places in Eastern Europe. Acknowledgement from the guide meant the world to me. Once that was done, I could relax, listen, and go back to being a loner. I did not need to be the center of attention, only an acknowledgement. That need has always been inside of me.
I always talked too much as a child, probably because I felt like no one was really listening to me. I have learned to live with being largely ignored, but only after an acknowledgement. If one was not forthcoming, then I would continue to search. The need comes from a childhood where my dad had disappeared, and my mom was distracted with trying to meet our most basic needs. There was no one to really listen, but my mom always acknowledged me and my two siblings. As for my father, he never knew what I was missing. Unfortunately, I did and still do, no matter how far I am from home, I still search for affirmation in the eyes of strangers.
Affirmation – Guide on the Free Tour of Bucharest
Illicit Love Affair – An Epic Tragedy
I carried a lot of baggage to Bontida and none of it was on my back. I went to see the ruined home of the Transylvanian aristocrat, Miklos Banffy whose Transylvania Trilogy I had read with intense interest. That lost world fascinated me with its elegant balls, crazed eccentrics, illicit love affairs, intellectual endeavors, and sporting pursuits. That grand splendor was dealt the first of several fatal blows by the First World War. The world which had existed prior to the war never really returned afterwards. It struggled on like a bad marriage momentarily saved by material possessions and money. There was no going back to the way things used to be. Memories evoked sadness rather than joy because they were a reminder of all that had been lost. Everyone was left fending for themselves.
The old order had been upended to the point that no one knew what came next. Some picked up the pieces and rebuilt a semblance of their lives, others took to slowly killing themselves, while still others practiced the fine art of self-delusion. There were plenty of poisons to pick from. Radical ideologies were among the most lethal. Banffy erred on the side of truth masquerading as fiction with his epic trilogy. I felt a kinship with the lost world he so elegantly portrayed. Another great writer of the early 20th century, Marcel Proust, once said, “the only true paradises are the ones we have lost.” I didn’t quite realize at the time of my visit to Banffy Kastely that I was searching for a paradise I had lost. Slowly the truth revealed itself to me. I was searching one lost world for another.
Light and darkness – View from a ruined room at Banffy Kastely
The Lost World – Transylvanian Trauma
The lost world of Transylvanian aristocracy portrayed by Banffy reminded me of the one our family lost when my father walked away from it all. We went from wealthy to working class overnight. The upper economic echelon of society was no longer open to us. Love turned to loneliness, and the emotional tumult took a toll on everyone. No one was ever the same. Some of us were better, some of us were worse, none of us were left unscathed. The baggage I carried to Banffy Kastely was the heaviness in my heart brought all the way from home. They say you can’t take it with you. I know better. I know the truth.
Click here for: Playing The Victim – Imagining The Worst In Sarajevo (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #80)
Europe Between East And West 