continuous line
acrylic on multimedia paper
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Reflections on Traveling Alone and the Experience of Belonging
The first week after my return from Europe, I would awake every morning disoriented and confused. In the darkness of my room, which has no windows as is the case in a number of loft apartments, I would be shaken from sleep by the shrill announcement of my alarm, and have no idea where I was.
This is not unusual after returning from an extended stay abroad. However, I would argue that, considering the transient nature of my trip--never spending more than a few days in any particular location--it is a peculiar phenomenon. Not once after my first night in Europe did I experience that shock upon waking of thinking I was in one place and realizing I was in another. Not once.
And yet when I find myself finally back in familiar circumstances, sleeping every night in the same bed, my bed, the bed I've been sleeping in for the past three months... suddenly I don't know where I am anymore?
There is always a degree of culture shock when one returns from Away and has to readjust to Home. The customs, the currency, the language... one gets used to things being strange and different. One gets used to waking up to different sounds, different smells, and in a hostel, a constant rotation of different faces. So even when I returned to this city I have called Home for four years, and the sounds, the smells, all of the elements that make this place what it is and what I remember it being before I left are still there... and none of it seems welcoming. None of it seems refreshing.
I have said this to friends on occasion, I have written other essays about it, but I'm only beginning to investigate what it reveals about my personality. This ease with which I adapt to being transient, the excitement and freedom I experience when staying only briefly in one place. The first time I experienced it was my sophomore year of college, when I was living on campus at Hofstra University in central Long Island. A handful of my friends had graduated the year before and moved to Brooklyn, so I began to visit and stay with them some weekends, jumping around from couch to couch, carrying all I could possibly need in a bag on my back. Untethered, uninhibited, anonymous.
It didn't stop when I moved to New York as a transfer student the following year. Living in dorms and the sense of attachment you are prohibited from developing to your living space is in itself a form of transience, so I continued to stay occasionally with friends on weekends. Even once I moved into my own apartment, there would still be rare moments when I would just not go home for a couple days, wearing the same clothes, buying a toothbrush, borrowing face wash and deodorant, letting my phone battery die. Some of the best times I've had are those weekends when I would leave my apartment and spontaneously find myself sleeping on a couch here and a couch there until the weekend was over and I had to resume the charade of a moderately responsible full-time student.
I know that it looks selfish and irresponsible from the outside if I don't let my roommate or friends know where I am or who I am with, ignoring their calls and letting my phone die. But in this tangled-network of over-connectedness, obsessive updating, Four Square checking-in, sometimes the only modicum of control and freedom and independence I can exercise it just saying fuck it all, and going off on my own... out of touch, without direction, knowing that at any time I could just go home and crawl into my bed and be surrounded by the familiarity of my things... but lately I've found that the idea of home can be stranger and more anxiety-inducing than being on my own in a strange city where I don't even speak the language.
In fact, one of the most refreshing things about being abroad was not having to be subject to other people's mindless or petty conversations; not caring what other people think about you because when will you ever see them again? And I'm sure for many who might read this, it will sound like what I'm addicted to is running away from some problem or another, or that I'm running away from myself. But that is simply not true. Wherever I go, my past and my troubles are always with me. Rather, it is when I am between destinations that I can obtain a clearer perspective on what troubles me and why it does so. I can ponder my life without hesitation, because the dramas and insecurities of mundane experience can't touch me. All I have to concern myself with is survival and the issues that plague me when I am in the comfort of the familiar don't seem so important. And in all honesty, I feel more uncomfortable, more unstable and unsure of myself when all my creature comforts are provided.
Maybe I just haven't found the right place to set down roots yet, but experience and insight suggest that no matter where I am, who I love, whatever dramas ensue, I will always long for and actively pursue the luxury of being in-between.
This is not unusual after returning from an extended stay abroad. However, I would argue that, considering the transient nature of my trip--never spending more than a few days in any particular location--it is a peculiar phenomenon. Not once after my first night in Europe did I experience that shock upon waking of thinking I was in one place and realizing I was in another. Not once.
And yet when I find myself finally back in familiar circumstances, sleeping every night in the same bed, my bed, the bed I've been sleeping in for the past three months... suddenly I don't know where I am anymore?
There is always a degree of culture shock when one returns from Away and has to readjust to Home. The customs, the currency, the language... one gets used to things being strange and different. One gets used to waking up to different sounds, different smells, and in a hostel, a constant rotation of different faces. So even when I returned to this city I have called Home for four years, and the sounds, the smells, all of the elements that make this place what it is and what I remember it being before I left are still there... and none of it seems welcoming. None of it seems refreshing.
I have said this to friends on occasion, I have written other essays about it, but I'm only beginning to investigate what it reveals about my personality. This ease with which I adapt to being transient, the excitement and freedom I experience when staying only briefly in one place. The first time I experienced it was my sophomore year of college, when I was living on campus at Hofstra University in central Long Island. A handful of my friends had graduated the year before and moved to Brooklyn, so I began to visit and stay with them some weekends, jumping around from couch to couch, carrying all I could possibly need in a bag on my back. Untethered, uninhibited, anonymous.
It didn't stop when I moved to New York as a transfer student the following year. Living in dorms and the sense of attachment you are prohibited from developing to your living space is in itself a form of transience, so I continued to stay occasionally with friends on weekends. Even once I moved into my own apartment, there would still be rare moments when I would just not go home for a couple days, wearing the same clothes, buying a toothbrush, borrowing face wash and deodorant, letting my phone battery die. Some of the best times I've had are those weekends when I would leave my apartment and spontaneously find myself sleeping on a couch here and a couch there until the weekend was over and I had to resume the charade of a moderately responsible full-time student.
I know that it looks selfish and irresponsible from the outside if I don't let my roommate or friends know where I am or who I am with, ignoring their calls and letting my phone die. But in this tangled-network of over-connectedness, obsessive updating, Four Square checking-in, sometimes the only modicum of control and freedom and independence I can exercise it just saying fuck it all, and going off on my own... out of touch, without direction, knowing that at any time I could just go home and crawl into my bed and be surrounded by the familiarity of my things... but lately I've found that the idea of home can be stranger and more anxiety-inducing than being on my own in a strange city where I don't even speak the language.
In fact, one of the most refreshing things about being abroad was not having to be subject to other people's mindless or petty conversations; not caring what other people think about you because when will you ever see them again? And I'm sure for many who might read this, it will sound like what I'm addicted to is running away from some problem or another, or that I'm running away from myself. But that is simply not true. Wherever I go, my past and my troubles are always with me. Rather, it is when I am between destinations that I can obtain a clearer perspective on what troubles me and why it does so. I can ponder my life without hesitation, because the dramas and insecurities of mundane experience can't touch me. All I have to concern myself with is survival and the issues that plague me when I am in the comfort of the familiar don't seem so important. And in all honesty, I feel more uncomfortable, more unstable and unsure of myself when all my creature comforts are provided.
Maybe I just haven't found the right place to set down roots yet, but experience and insight suggest that no matter where I am, who I love, whatever dramas ensue, I will always long for and actively pursue the luxury of being in-between.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
"Untitled Web"
(click to enlarge)
The web of desire can rarely be un-spun, but our participation in the unfolding of its patterning is required if we are even to attempt to understand it.
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