![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pax_athena[me]
I envy people who travel solo. I can't.
I'm not afraid of travelling alone (although I do tend to be a cautious traveller in general, but I guess this is a relative thing). But I do not enjoy it. I need someone to enjoy it with, someone to point out that building or this lizard to. If this is someone with whom I can compare this view to the other one from two years ago, it's even better. I understand the beauty of the landscape and the history of the city but I only feel them if I can share them with someone, reflect them.
****
[me]
I love coming back. Perhaps even more so than travelling to new places. When the new and the memory overlap, when the surprise and the recollection overlay in complex patterns, when you see everything twice, through your eyes now and five years ago, comparing the past you and the current you and realizing what all changes in between and what stayed the same.
(Travelling intertextuality? Something like this. In any case, definitely related to the way I read.)
****
[and this is also more about *me* than you, even though it sounds differently]
Travelling and living somewhere is not the same. I know, what a surprise! But here is a thing: it's really hard for me to find a common language with people who have not lived abroad for a prolonged amount of time (although this is not always the case; my partner has not lived abroad for various reasons not to be discussed here). It is not country specific. But there is something that having lived - truly lived! - in a different society changes about you. And yes, there is a part of me that rolls her eyes every time someone that tells me about the few months they spent somewhere else. I know it's not very fair (maybe it's even elitist; but then again I could also make an argument that it's a luxury to have a career - if you want a career, of course - that allows you to stay in the same country); but especially when it comes to academics - well yeah, sorry, this does not really count ...
(And there is no coming back, of course. Once you lived somewhere else you are forever changed. There is no coming home because your home is now a liminal space between countries and cultures.)
I envy people who travel solo. I can't.
I'm not afraid of travelling alone (although I do tend to be a cautious traveller in general, but I guess this is a relative thing). But I do not enjoy it. I need someone to enjoy it with, someone to point out that building or this lizard to. If this is someone with whom I can compare this view to the other one from two years ago, it's even better. I understand the beauty of the landscape and the history of the city but I only feel them if I can share them with someone, reflect them.
****
[me]
I love coming back. Perhaps even more so than travelling to new places. When the new and the memory overlap, when the surprise and the recollection overlay in complex patterns, when you see everything twice, through your eyes now and five years ago, comparing the past you and the current you and realizing what all changes in between and what stayed the same.
(Travelling intertextuality? Something like this. In any case, definitely related to the way I read.)
****
[and this is also more about *me* than you, even though it sounds differently]
Travelling and living somewhere is not the same. I know, what a surprise! But here is a thing: it's really hard for me to find a common language with people who have not lived abroad for a prolonged amount of time (although this is not always the case; my partner has not lived abroad for various reasons not to be discussed here). It is not country specific. But there is something that having lived - truly lived! - in a different society changes about you. And yes, there is a part of me that rolls her eyes every time someone that tells me about the few months they spent somewhere else. I know it's not very fair (maybe it's even elitist; but then again I could also make an argument that it's a luxury to have a career - if you want a career, of course - that allows you to stay in the same country); but especially when it comes to academics - well yeah, sorry, this does not really count ...
(And there is no coming back, of course. Once you lived somewhere else you are forever changed. There is no coming home because your home is now a liminal space between countries and cultures.)
no subject
Date: 2017-09-06 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-07 03:06 pm (UTC)In general, living abroad is most about the experience of the relativity of a lot of things that we see as normal and right in terms of society and interaction. It makes one, even after coming back, question a lot more concepts that one would not have thought about before.