Overall, though, international travel (and this should have been apparent to me long before I actually did it) is just drugs turned inside out. Instead of changing your internal scenery, you change the external. I can see why too they're referred to as drug "trips." Once you break the connection between your inner self and your external environment, the resulting dissonance stirs up new associations, new fears, and tests your essential personality. Suddenly going out for milk is an adventure. Suddenly the smallest bits of human kindness, as when someone patiently asks you what you want to drink with your sandwich, become extremely moving and rewarding.

[…]

So begin. Begin. Start. The word is inherent in the crest of every cafe chair, in the checks of every colored shirt and tie. Begin. The street sighs look like advertisements for cigarettes and the cigarette ads have yet to be seen, but the women look like ads for cigarettes and jeans, and movies where the ending are markedly oblique. Across latticeworks of lines we've laid down for ourselves, we march determinedly down narrow streets of our making, of alleyways of our choosing. The city, like the mark of Cain, is worn upon our brow, reflected in the wrinkles that every squinting city man has, is carried in our voice like a brand. Our pot bellies, our squat stooped posture, our dead eyed urban acquiescence are all the indications that God has put his mark upon us.

I may have to get going soon. Maybe that's the message inherent in every city. Go, go, go. Begin. Our faces ask us to, our mouths tell us to, our eyes wonder why we haven't, and soon we'll find ourselves, fleeing, hurtling down the narrow alleys, over street tile in the shape of seashells, looking for more than this imagined sea, but in fact for the actual sea itself, the actual ocean; our first city; our first home.

[…]

There's something deeply refreshing about P. Diddy at the moment. Finally here in the alleys of Barcelona, Puff Daddy makes a bit of sense, something inauthentic with which one can ward off all feeling of insecurity. It's like, "Yeah, fuck you! I can rap along with P. Diddy! That beats your lousy Euro crap any day of the week!"

Me vs. them. It's not like I feel consciously in opposition to the people of Europe. I just am looking for some for m of validation. It's an infantilizing experience to be here, particularly for a narcissist like me. That this culture has existed before me--okay, that I can understand. But for it to continue to exist without acknowledging me in the least? Well, that just will not stand!

Yes, I can safely say that the anonymity of European cities feels different to the anonymity of American cities, if only, perhaps, because the american anonymity can be renounced at will, ad I think it would not be so easy to do here, even if one spoke the language.

[…]

Previous: October 23, 2001--In The Air

Next: October 26, 2001--Barcelona, Spain

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All material on these pages is ©2001 by Jeff Lester. With the exception of non-profit distribution, all other rights are reserved.