In December 1972 I took a train trip from Windsor to Montreal. A couple friends were just finishing up their first semester at McGill University, and the whole gang was descending upon them for an end-of-the-year party. The train trip took all night, slowed down by the heavy snow.
Around 10:00, the train made a stop somewhere in Ontario: London, Kitchener, one of those medium-sized cities. While it was in the station, I went outside between cars and looked around. The city was lit with street lights and house lights, and fat flakes of snow were slowly filtering down. I looked around the peaceful town and was struck, for the first time in my eighteen years, by how large the world was. Here was a city filled with people, all living their own lives, living and dying, getting born and growing up and growing old, falling in love, getting married, having kids, getting divorced, everything—and I would never know any of them, never have the least inkling of any of their lives, never have contact with them of any kind. It was a sobering thought.
I’ve had that same thought, and variations of it, a number of times over the intervening years. It’s never quite so striking as the first time, but it increases in depth each time. I had it again today, walking with Elizabeth and Joe through Totonicapán, a small town in the Guatemalan highlands. It was market day, and the streets were packed with booths and people selling fruits, vegetables, the odd chicken, beautiful hand-woven textiles, shoes, cell-phone accessories, t-shirts, belts, shawls, pirated CDs and DVDs, nuts, dried fruits, spices, handmade jewelry, handmade pottery, hats and scarves, and about a bazillion other things.
And this time, the feeling wasn’t only of having no personal knowledge of the people around me. There was also the realization that I have no idea what life is like here. And never will. I know what it looks like from my perspective, but that certainly must be a far cry from what it is to live it. Though I know that all the people around me have all the same basic desires, emotions, aspirations, fears and so on, the particulars of their lives will forever be much farther from me than those of the residents of the states, of Ontario, or of just about any other place I’ve ever been.
Elizabeth
Henry
It’s that feeling of “other” that makes travel so special, I believe. Also, though, when the
“other” turns into familiar, that’s maybe even more special. I’m another step removed from the places you’re writing about, but even the blog is bringing me to adventures I’ve never experienced. Thank you!
I often have the very same feeling. Despite technology, the world is so big, so diverse, and so complex. And we are but specks in it. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. xoxo
Henry, Just a knockout post. In real time to have these thoughts is a robust effort to understand what you are seeing. Love, Dad Bill
That was beautiful, Henry. We never had much time together so I am so interested
in your thoughts during your life’s adventures and not just current events.
I think I know your feeling. As a kid, I would stare at small homes out in the middle of North Dakota or nestled in a valley in Wyoming and wonder what it was like to live there. Oddly, the same thought didn’t occur to me about the folks on the Gold Coast in Chicago, I suppose because I could possibly move to Wyoming but not to a high rise on Lake Michigan!