“Not all those who wander are lost.” Tolkien

I was interviewed this week by a reporter who wanted to talk about my book and also, I suspect, to find out a bit about my exit from journalism. It was weird, really weird, for me. After some 20 years being the interviewer, being the one interviewed was a little unsettling. I suddenly had a whole new appreciation for everyone I’ve ever interviewed, for those moments when you’ve answered a question, and the tape in your head rewinds and you think, “Wait, that sounded stupid, that isn’t what I meant at all…” But she was friendly and easy to talk to and assured me she could make a story out of the mental garage sale a conversation with me generally becomes.

She asked me what my favorite pieces are in the book, and although I should have been ready for a question like that, it caught me a little off guard, like a parent asked which child she prefers. During the course of my answer, I realized that while I do like all the pieces for different reasons, my favorites were absolutely the ones that involve travel. After we hung up, I sat here and thought about that and then I took out my book and reread all the travel-related pieces and now I’ve got the urge to hit the road again so strongly that if this post suddenly stops mid-sentence, you’ll know I couldn’t wait any longer.

I’ve only been out of the US a handful of times – three times to Mexico, once to Canada and once to the UK, but some of the best writing I’ve done came out of those trips. I remember sitting on a flat stone ledge in Victoria Square, at the center of Birmingham, England, with my notebook and pencil, watching the city swirl around me, all the people going about their day to day business, going to their jobs or school, running errands, heading home… and me, sitting still in their midst, absorbing the absolute wonder of being a spectator in their lives, watching what made them different from the life I was used to, and the little quirks we all have in common. It’s endlessly fascinating to me that the most minor, insignificant details in our lives are the ones that actually unite us with the rest of humanity. Tiny, invisible threads that manifest themselves through something as simple as carrying a paper cup of coffee on the way to work. I did some of the best writing of my life in Victoria Square that day.

While travel is a bug that hasn’t bitten me as much as it just endlessly gnaws, I find that I don’t always have to go very far to satisfy it. Some days when I’m feeling penned in, pacing around my writing room, I’ll get on a train and in almost no time, I’m walking through the entrance of Central Park. It’s only a few miles from my front door, yet it’s my favorite escape. I always spend a little time wandering first, listening to the street musicians, the kids playing on the swings, the shouts of the men in the midst of a fierce soccer game. And invariably, I find my way to the giant rocks that jut up from the earth, ancient bedrock that started its formation during the Paleozoic Era. It’s hard to take your life and your problems too seriously once you’ve parked your butt on a rock that’s 450 million years old. I always find a nook in the rock, a place to nestle in and take out my notebook. I’ve spent hours there, writing and watching and listening and just being.

I can’t wait to travel again. The more I write about it here, the more excited I get to pack my bag and head back out. It’s almost like I don

 

Victoria Square, Birmingham, England. Photo by me.