to travel

After six decades of traveling, only one flight I am unable to recall in any detail. Knowing neither that I was in Manhattan, nor that I was about to fly, nor what leaving, or arriving was, and much less what Cuba was, my aunt carried me on the way to meet my grandmother. That very first flight was at the tender age of one.

After well over sixty flights – possibly closer to a hundred or even more – never have I prepared to embark on a trip in the state I am currently in. Plenty of times have I gone to strange lands, cultures, and cities before but these days a very unique state has overtaken me. 

While many of those trips have been to unknown destinations, and the preparations after booking the flights have been accompanied by awe, and the feeling of wonder, decades before reaching the country of Japan, I had been paying attention to their writing, their cinema, their Nō (Noh) theatre, their unique designs, and the very first camera I bought was a Nikon. 

The first visit to Ecuador was the result of another decades-long wish to see that part of the center of the earth, greatly for their natural abundance, and due to my long-standing interest in coffee cultures. Yet, a command of the Spanish language allowed me to blend in with ease, to the point that some did not know I was a foreigner.

Flying to Iceland in a few days fills me with a uniquely mild inner tremor, suspense, a sensation of being on a different earth than the one I would like to claim I know. It is merely a layover on my way to Ireland and Northern Ireland but a long one, and one that I will drain to the best of my possibilities. 

It is fair to assume that I will not have the privilege of meeting my beloved singer Björk. With certainty I expect to see trails of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Francis Bacon, and Samuel Beckett in Dublin, though, as well as some of C. S. Lewis in Belfast.

Portrait of man with glasses
Oil on canvas, 1963
© The Estate of Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon *1909