Traveling and Coming Home

Traveling and Coming Home: 15 November 2023

I wrote the obituaries for both of my parents. A bleak honor, I suppose, but an honor, nonetheless. I’ve been thinking of one line I wrote in Mama’s: She loved traveling and loved coming home.

Traveling can help us to savor coming home, and home can help us to savor traveling. And as the pandemic forced us to confront: too much of either can be stifling.

I recently traveled for the first time for my new job. I loved it! My colleague and I went to Charlotte, which I had once called home. During a lull in our meetings, we walked around my old neighborhood. The last time I’d been on those roads was the day I moved to Greenville, in July of 1983.

I walked past our old house three times before I finally stopped to look at the numbers. Very on trend, its red brick had been painted white. But once I recognized it, I could point out my bedroom windows, the brick wall I used to climb, the workshop Dad had built. I turned around to see the grassy median in the middle of the road.

One spring, my brother and his high school buddies used that median to test the range of a water balloon catapult they’d constructed for the school carnival. Both crossed wooden catapult arms had a piece of rubber surgical tubing (one friend’s father was a doctor) attached to its top. The tubing secured either side of Mama’s large kitchen funnel, which dangled innocently in the middle of the X.

The boys had perfected the launch: insert a water balloon, pull the funnel back several paces and let go with both hands at precisely the same time. The funnel would race toward the street, jerk backwards when the tubing stretched its length, and fling the balloon in a graceful arc toward the median, where it would burst, avoiding all cars. That’s why Mama and I were out there, to ensure they didn’t accidentally hit the cars.

The barrage paused when Dad arrived home from work. He parked, locked his sedan, watched a couple of launches, and asked for a water balloon. He handed Mama his briefcase. He tucked his tie out of the way. He inserted the balloon into the funnel. He stepped backwards several paces. He released. It started out fine.

Unfortunately, Dad had let go of the bottom hand a little sooner than the top. We all watched helplessly as the funnel gracefully pivoted 180 degrees on its race to the street and, at its most extreme distance, reverse back in our direction. In slow motion horror the funnel sped back towards Dad, and several paces away, flung the balloon directly at him. It exploded where his suit trousers met his starched white shirt. It had to have hurt. He was drenched, his mouth a cartoon O.

No one moved. No one breathed.

Ten minutes—but really just four seconds—crept past and then, mercifully, Dad kind of chuckled. He picked up his briefcase and squelched inside. The rest of us remained in tableau. As soon as the door closed, though, we erupted in laughter, gripping our sides, falling to the ground, wiping tears out of our eyes.

The memory came at me like one of those balloons. That was forty years ago. Right up this driveway. Right there. Time and space travel: both traveling and home.

A friend responded to my blog preview by reminding me of prior traveling anxiety. I was working for a Quaker organization based in Philadelphia but living in South Carolina, and I traveled about once a month.

I loved traveling. I loved getting to know that thrum of a big city with public transportation. I loved being anonymously superior with the familiarity of a commute—which platform, which door, which coffee vendor. I loved downloading Audible books to my computer, transferring them to my green Creative Zen player, and having a wonderful narrator tell me a beautiful story while I watched the landscape unroll beneath the plane. I loved trying local foods, visiting local attractions (like trying to ice skate on Lake Menona), trying to say things the ‘right’ way. I loved meeting people.

Here's a point of interest. Quakers have a commitment to the spiritual gift of hospitality which stretches to home hospitality. Wherever I traveled, I always stayed with a local Quaker. Sometimes they were the very ones I was traveling to solicit! It is a beautiful way to get to know people deeply, and quickly. Surprisingly, it was never awkward. Those experiences were great gifts.

Then I had baby Jack, and for about six months, until I lost my job in the 2008 economic downturn, he traveled with me. Alex was right; about this travel, I was nervous.

I was nervous about how to haul all the baby stuff; about catching commuter trains and buses; about breastfeeding and babysitters and nap schedules. I’m a little ashamed to admit that I was also nervous that I would be doing all this vulnerable traveling in the North, a place not known for an abundance of hospitality or friendliness. At least, not to hear my Southern culture tell it.

Travel can be awful. It can be inconvenient, bringing out the worst in people, bringing out the worst in me. It also can be humbling.

Everywhere I traveled with Jack people were shockingly, embarrassingly kind. My friend Karen invited me to stay whenever I was in Philadelphia. She fixed up her spare room with a pack-n-play, got a car seat, and opened her home to babysitters she helped to arrange. Strangers smiled at Jack, gave us their seats, stowed and retrieved our bags. Policemen held doors open for us and one carried everything down a flight of stairs for me. Friends carried stuff, played with Jack, brought me food.

Once an angel slid in next to me on a train packed with cranky commuters headed home on a cold night. She talked gently to my frantic self, helped me settle Jack’s crying, told me no one minded his crying and if they did then that was their problem, and then got off at the next stop before I could thank or even get a good look at her.

Aldous Huxley once said, “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries." About other countries, about other people, about myself.

In March 2022, our family traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico, to visit my 84-year-old cousins. Technically, my 1st cousin once removed (twice removed for Jack and Emma) and his wife. I’d met James and Mary Wyly once, for about 15 minutes, in the O’Hare airport, in 1999. We kept in slight Facebook touch until Jim and I connected in the Fall of 2021 and then we all shared some Zooms. One night after a Zoom I woke up around 2:30 a.m. and thought, “I need to go visit Jim and Mary. Can we get to Oaxaca from Greenville?”

We loved Oaxaca. We loved Jim and Mary. We ate amazing foods, visited ancient ruins, rode horseback, supported local artists. Jim and Mary hosted their first-since-the-pandemic salon in our honor. They and their professional musician friends sang and played piano, harpsichord, cello, guitar. We celebrated afterwards in their courtyard with mezcal, fruit, and pastries. At one point I leaned over to Jack and Emma and whispered, “This is not what other people mean when they say they visited Mexico.” We bought clothes from Mary’s favorite clothing artist. We accompanied them to a few of their favorite restaurants. We browsed the inventory of Jim’s oil paintings and brought home five still lifes. It was all glorious, and my only regret was not having thought to learn any Spanish ahead of the trip.

I’d been in touch with Jim about us going back this summer. I found out he’d been very sick but was finally recovering, though weak. And then a couple of weeks ago Mary wrote to tell me that Jim died on October 15th. She wrote, “We had an improvised Mexican velada in the bedroom with music, mezcal, prayers from his childhood, memories, songs. The kind of quiet evening he always loved. No fuss.”

I read Mary’s email out loud over supper. We were all sad. Really sad. But we were also really really glad that we’d gone to Oaxaca. We talked about how we could only feel the sadness because of how much we loved him. We experienced his exuberance and vitality. We connected quickly and deeply. Our travel gave us a deeper sense of home.

 So now I have a job that lets me travel again. I get to check out local landmarks, learn new ways of commuting, try local foods. (We found a great French patisserie in Charlotte.) I probably won’t get another chance to ice-skate on a lake, but you never know. Honestly though, I’d think twice. I’m a lot more breakable now.

I love traveling and I love coming home. Sure, traveling can be a drag, and bring out the worst in everyone, but mostly I like it. Mostly the people are interesting. Mostly people are kind.

I agree with Anne Lamott: Traveling is a way of saying yes to life.