Traveling Light and Heavy

"Traveling solo" is a misnomer for this blog/open diary/letter to friends.  Every trip is a mix of solitude and conversation with other people.

When I need time alone, it's usually when I sense a crossroad coming up and need time to discover which way to go.  Or after a time of Too-Much, when I need to just be with a fresh, quiet new canvas. I call that kind of travel a journey.

Other times, like this last trip, I prefer being with a great road trip companion so that we can share the scenic views and sleep in the same room and make happy memories together.

Nothing is more refreshing than travel--even though it takes a while to settle back in after a trip.  The first night after air travel,  I feel wilted, weary from a day of lugging baggage through trains and terminals, saying good-byes, being careful not to lose balance on escalators.

It would be a good idea to keep a small suitcase packed at all times, just in case a journey calls.  If flying, the suitcase should be large enough to hold the minimum needs for being away from home and battered enough that you don't mind checking it.  I always have this fantasy of walking around the airport unencumbered and free--though in reality I feel more like a carrier of stuff, intent on getting to my destination.

Carlene drove me to the Chamblee  Marta station yesterday morning--the easiest way to get to the Atlanta airport.  While waiting for the train, I stood with dozens of people dressed up, all wearing badges that announced in Spanish that they were Jehova's Witnesses attending a conference:  Testigos de Jehová.

Even the smallest boys of two and three were wearing suits, as were the men and older boys. The women and girls were dressed up in their church clothes, lacy skirts and shiny shoes, the girls with bright bows in their hair.  As we traveled south, others got on at every stop, all wearing the same badges, and I enjoyed watching them--gentle, friendly people--all the way to mid-town where they all got off the train. I took a seat and balanced my three bags, feeling frumpy among these fresh-faced and cheerful people.

When I got on the plane, I made a list of things to take Next Time I Fly--including advice to myself to mail home anything heavier than a post card should I be tempted to buy souvenirs.  I reminded my future traveling self to take minimum toiletries and no real books, to leave the laptop and extra camera at home and take the iPad and E-books instead.  "Travel lighter next time!" I wrote in my new sketch book.

When the hundreds of convention-goers got off at mid-town,  I missed them. I sat beside a young African-American boy jamming to the rap from his earphones and across from a young girl with braids and swollen eyes who made eye contact with no one.

At the airport, starting on the escalator and continuing on the train to the terminals, I talked to a young man who's just finished a nine-month tour in Afghanistan.  He started the conversation by telling me he'd missed the plane he was supposed to be on because he'd left his debit card in the car and was having to take a later flight.

"Do you have family here?" I asked.  "Or are you on your way home?"

Between Terminals A and D, he told me his whole life story, details in rapid fire succession, without emotion.

"I ain't got no family," he said. "They all deceased."

His mother died when he was in high school, then his grandparents and two uncles.  After his step-father abused his sister, she committed suicide.  One brother died "over there," and another from a drug overdose.

I can't stop thinking about that boy with large eyes who'd seen more tragedies and deaths in his twenty years than I'd ever known anyone to have in my whole long life. Talk about a different kind of baggage! I got the feeling he'd told the facts so often that he'd memorized them, almost as if they  belonged to somebody else.

When we parted, he said, "Talking to you made my day, Mam"--though I'd barely said ten words. Maybe all it takes is asking one right question of each other to lighten our loads--if only for one day.