Homeward Bound

June 8, 2008

I am some 33 000 feet above land. Somewhere, probably by now, over eastern Russia. There are few words, metaphors, comparisons that could be used to describe the strange feeling in my gut. It’s not quite excitement or anxiety, sadness or fear, ambivalence or uncertainty, though I think it maybe be a combination of all of the above. If I had to make a statement, however, it would be to say that I’m not sure that I’m ready to return home, wherever and whatever that may be, quite yet. I’m not yet ready to bring to a close the adventures of this past year, the highs and lows that it has entailed, the discoveries and lessons (sometimes hard) that have been found, the landscapes the have been explored, the freedom, relatively speaking, to wander as I please. I am comforted, however, in knowing that, although I can’t quite express this emotion, it is perhaps not so uncommon, as I myself, and I’m sure many a traveler, have known it before.

If you have been following this blog since it’s beginning, you may be familiar with the origins of its title. If not, briefly, it grew out of a series of correspondences with a friend about the idea of wanderlust, and the cyclical nature of the relationship between wonder and wander. One of these correspondences included the reading of one of my friend’s essays, written during her graduate student years. As timing would have it, I read this essay while nearing the end of a month leading canoe trip in Algonquin, just a few weeks before I left Canada. Among other things, in this essay she argues that wonder should be seen as both a cause and effect—the cause of curiosity, wandering, etc., yet also the effect of wandering, and muses: “Can two parts which define each other ever be separated.” The following is a letter to her, and some other wandering things, written after I head read her essay. Although these words were written from a very different place, they express an emotion I’m encountering again (especially the last part), and so I include them here.

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Day XV, Hogan Lake

I set out tonight to have a conversation with your thoughts, or at least the thoughts of a former you, so, pen and journal in hand, I took to my canoe and paddled out toward the sun making its evening descent towards the horizon. I paddled out until I could no longer hear anything then began to read. Lost in this world of words and ideas, reading intensely and writing fervently, I sat up only to stretch an aching muscle in my back. With my head no longer in the page, I laughed to myself—at myself—for having lost myself in thoughts. And then I just sat in the silence and the stillness of the lake at sunset, awed by the simple beauty of these wild northern places. Silent save for the lonely cry of the loon. I sat for awhile, trying to think of a way to soak in the stillness of this place, to bottle it up, to be able to take it back with me, to sustain me amidst the concrete of the city—of civilization. And I return to your words, the idea of wonder, the mystery of how to make this wonder the fuel of one’s life…and the incessant challenge of turning this wonder into scholarship. And the even greater challenge of reconciling the “world” of academia with the stillness of this place. I ask myself if it is possible to inhabit both worlds…

For those of you that travel, let this be a warning. The large skies and stark beauty of these northern places can move and challenge you as gently, as insistently, as completely as the warmest and most profound of lovers. It truly becomes possible to have a love affair with the land. As for us, we all had a difficult time returning, and part of each of us probably never will. ~Jesse Ford~

Day XVI, Little Crow Lake

…And while I sat in this question of inhabiting both worlds for long enough, the distinction between the two began to fade until they were no longer separate. Until I could see the faces of every nation reflected in the subtle ripples of the lake at dusk. Until the trees and the sky melted into each other, the same way a city skyline dissolves into the heavens as the setting sun reflects off of skyscraper windows. Until the cry of the loon became the cry of a hurting species, of all those who suffer, and all those who rejoice. Until I could feel that the water that carried me ran to bigger lakes and rivers until it met the sea, where all of the water of this earth goes, and I could feel the collective journey of the water molecules beneath me to this place. And the silence and stillness of this place became not just the state of this lake at this hour but the state of my soul. And I realized that the awe, the astonishment, the wonder with which this place fills me is, as you say, both the cause and the effect of my wanderlust, and this wanderlust leads me not only to the places of rocks, lakes and trees, but to downtown Istanbul, the suburbs of Siberia, the far corners of foreign libraries, the ideas of poets, mystics, essayists, theorists and everything in between. For intrinsic to this wonder is a love of life, of discovering, questioning, connecting, creating, seeing, loving…

…and yet I’m not sure if I’m ready to leave this world, to return to lands of cars and condos and traffic lights and electricity. While I began this trip counting down the days with anticipation, I find myself now counting down with sadness, with a bit of fear and hesitation, for I feel as I’ve only just found a home here, in the rhythm of packing, paddling, portaging, and watching the sun come and go from beyond the horizon. I’m not quite sure how I will be able to return, not yet ready to face the changes this time among wild things has had on me. Not yet ready to face the many tasks of preparing to leave Waterloo, to say goodbye to a certain chapter of my life.