Writing Assignment #5: Coming and Going (Mach II)

For me the philosophical question of nature versus nurture is not one that can be answered by one or the other, but rather they are complementary to one another. Using a metaphor in keeping with the components of this program I would describe nature as a block of marble uncut and unshaped but nonetheless containing inherent characteristics.  Nurture, on the other hand, is the sculptor; it will shape the marble but it cannot change white marble into say green nor can it dictate how the veins running through the marble will appear. This week's writing assignment deals with the concept of leaving a place and returning to find that it feels different.  It is not uncommon to explain this phenomenon by saying that the place itself has changed, however in most instances it is you that has changed. Travel is often an incredibly defining moment in one's life, it is only when we take our identity and place it in a position where it contrasts with something, that the opportunity for change presents itself. When we travel we take our identity and place it in a position where it contrasts with everything. I say the opportunity for change very deliberately for change is not required in fact some contrasts may cause one to become even more resolute in their existing beliefs. Samuel Johnson once commented on travel, "All travel has its advantages.  If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it." While the quote is quite simple it expresses a profound outlook on travel, suggesting that regardless of connotations we attach to experiences as "good" or "bad" they are valuable  in their role as metaphorical chisel strokes. To be frank a large part of why I choose to travel as much as I do is directly linked to this.  I have yet to even remotely figure out a plan for my life to say nothing of my indecision regarding an area of study.  I am searching and in some ways that search is in a very literal sense. I have this concept that at some point everything will just click and I'll know exactly what I want to do with my life; as time passes though I have come to realize just how naive of an idea that truly is.  In fact perhaps life works in a completely antithetical way, I remember when I was say 11 or 12 and there was not a doubt in my mind what I wanted to do when I grew up.  I was going to be an entrepreneur in case you were wondering, not that I had any idea what that entailed.  Nowadays being an entrepreneur is still a possibility for me but it has become clouded by all the logistics that never occurred to me, nor would they have mattered, when I was a child.  Before we are lost in tangential thoughts, allow me to ground these abstracts in recent, personal experience.  Obviously if you have navigated your way to this blog, or even if you are here by mistake and took the time to read the title of this blog, then you are aware that I am currently studying in Rome. What it will say on my transcript is that I studied Art History, Italian and Immigration and Emmigration while i was here in Rome.  While this is all true, were you to catch me in a particularly divulgent mood, as I apparently am right now, I would say that they are not the primary things I am studying. I am learning about myself.  For example, this trip has recently eclipsed my previous personal record for longest stay outside of the United States (not counting one particular outlier that I don't remember too well) and at this point I have a fairly good idea of what it is I miss most: Seattle coffee culture and the paragraph long orders that go along with  it, the English language and the deep bass my speakers produce, 24 hour grocery stores and Mexican food.  At the same time there are things here in Italy that I have enjoyed becoming accustomed to, scarves, gelato, train rides, cobblestone, tomatoes. This is of course on the most macro of scales, an intercontinental one even, yet the same concept holds true in instances of less dramatic juxtaposition.  We can apply this same model to my most recent excursion, a weekend in Venice during Carnevale, and in all likelihood it will provide a more insightful example as I have yet to return to the States from Italy and therefore cannot extrapolate upon the homecoming.  My experience in Venice can only be described as surreal, a weekend in a magical fantasy land where princesses and Casanovas were commonplace, and long odds seemed quite short. Allow me to relate a parable that might help you understand the atmosphere of the weekend. I arrived at Santa Lucia Station about seven minutes late and got off the train expecting to be greeted by my friend who should have arrived a few minutes prior to myself. Of course he wasn't there or this would be a rather poor story.  So I waited at the station for about 45 minutes at which point he had still not arrived.  At this point I was a rather interesting combination of stressed and bemused considering we hadn't really formulated a plan B, I didn't have a cell phone with minutes on it nor did I know my number so as to put minutes on it nor did I even know Alex's number, and to top it off I didn't know anything about where we were staying that night since he had made the reservations.  To put it eloquently, I was kind of fucked.  At this point I decided for whatever reason (impatience) that waiting at the train station was not my best option so I ventured vicariously into Venice in an effort to find somewhere with wi-fi.  A short jaunt got me to an internet cafe type establishment where using some exceptional powers of deduction, I was able to determine where my guest house was.  A quick email to my friend later, and I was off.  I arrived at the boat station, yeah they have boats not buses, only to discover that the 48 hour ticket I intended to buy wouldn't quite cover till I left on Sunday.  Just to be safe I decided to wait an hour or so and wander around Venice for a bit in an erratic fashion. Several blocks from the station I rounded a corner onto a narrow nearly abandoned alleyway, the only people sharing it with me were three men about my age.  One in particular was wearing a garish orange sweatshirt, which upon closer inspection read "Pepperdine", my gaze drifted up and I found myself looking at the face of my friend Alex, for some reason I wasn't particularly surprised, as if I had almost expected it to happen.  That seemed to set the tone for the weekend, the unusual became the norm.  The following two days were a flurry of masks, madonnas and new friends.  The return trip to Rome was an almost depressing experience in that I wished the weekend would never end and it finally had.  Reflecting upon this now I realize the absurdity of being sad about returning to Rome, but that doesn't make the emotion at the time any less authentic. As I walked back into Termini it was interesting to note how relieved I was to be back, until that point I don't think I had really considered how accustomed I had grown to Rome, how easily my conception of home had shifted in accordance with where I sleep. You see Johnson's quote is deceptively simplified, he makes it seem as if a country you visit will be either a good or a bad experience, the reality is much greyer, in every country, even every city one visits, both sides of this coin will be there.  There will be some things you will be enraptured by and others that you would happily never undergo again, it is in finding out what falls in each category that identity is defined.