"The World Spins Madly On"

I recently finished reading an edition of The Best American Travel Writing, an annual collection of noteworthy travel pieces from American magazines. In one story republished from Gourmet magazine, William Least Heat-Moon recalls playing copilot for his father as a child, and something his father often said on trips. "From a mere vacation, one goes home older, but from true travel, one returns changed by challenge."

 

Beginning today, I can count down to my homecoming in days rather than months. It must be time to reflect on those challenges that have shaped me this year. Although some days it feels like it's just beginning, it also feels like it might be simpler to list the experiences and emotions I haven't had since August.

 

My passport was lost in the mail until the day before I left. I celebrated my 23^rd birthday on the Great Wall. I saw the Dalai Lama, and the sunrise at the Taj Mahal. I learned how to say, "I am cold!" in Chinese, and celebrated Christmas at a nightclub. I wrote a 50,101-word novel, and ate holy food off the floor while recovering from food poisoning. I rescued a puppy, and a monk who thinks we should love pigs as much as we love dogs taught me about anger. I taught, and learned, and taught some more. I really loved that part.

 

Some of my experiences were rather mundane. My toilet overflowed. I cried a lot. I went to the gym. I cooked.

 

Last night, my friend Cate and I climbed into the mountains above Chengde just before sunset. A network of trails crisscrosses away from the city's neon lights (lights that make it look much more glamorous than it actually is), and we've been saying for weeks that we wanted to spend the night out in the open, above the noise. We camped under a pagoda, watching the sun sink behind the western mountains on its way to rise over my friends and family, as the gleaming full moon ascended from the east.

 

We talked the night away, and got a few amateur photos of the brilliant moon, before the sun lightened the horizon again around 3:00 a.m. Watching the sky's rotation like that, it's impossible not to comprehend just how fast the world is spinning. As Cate said, "Look at this sky moving. How could anyone ever have thought the world was flat?" (I told her about Iowa.)

 

It's difficult to quantify what I'll miss when thirty more of those spins land me in the U.S. The food, my students, my friends, my own space. Will I miss the thrill of being on a bus careening toward a bicyclist and swerving at the last minute? Or seeing children relieve themselves by the sidewalk? The deep, guttural sound of a man cleaning mucus out of his lungs to launch it into the street? Perhaps.

 

Simon Winchester, author of "Welcome to Nowhere" in The Best American Travel Writing, quoted his tailor's comment to him upon his return from an incredible journey. "You know, you are a very, very lucky man indeed. Lucky to be in such a place. Lucky to see such things. And luckiest of all to meet such very kind people. I envy you. Everyone must envy you. Wherever would you be—have you ever wondered—without all their kindness and without all this luck?"

 

There may not be ubiquitous envy for my experiences or living conditions, but I do consider myself indescribably lucky to be in such a place, to have met such kind people, to see the sky turn pink and orange with the moon still high in the sky over Chengde. 

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