Rekindling the conversation

Spring break. Audible exhales as we all sigh in relief and resign ourselves, quite willingly, to losing a few days of potential productivity to much-needed recharging. Going out in celebration, movie watching, reading for pleasure, visiting and/or travelling, and, perhaps most importantly, catching up on sleep (current ability to sleep in and knowing that we'll regain the lost hour in the fall being the only thing saving me from shaking my fists at daylight savings).


In the process of the aforementioned recharging, I've just returned - or rather, restarted - a Paul Theroux collection that's been taunting me, unopened, for months, Fresh Air Fiend. Page 1, Introduction: Being a Stranger. "I was an outsider before I was a traveler... I think one led to the other. ...Exile is a large concept for which a smaller version, the one I chose, is expatriation. I simply went away. Raised in a large, talkative, teasing family of seven children," (Me too, she thinks. 1 half-brother, 1 brother, 1 step-brother, 3 step-sisters.) "I yearned for a space of my own. One of my pleasures was reading; reading was a refuge and an indulgence. But my greatest pleasure lay in leaving my crowded house and going for all-day hikes" (or bike rides). ...a good sign, isn't it, when you enter into a conversation with the author. ...No, I'd rather think that does not make me a crazy person, thank you.


And he continues. "When I went to Africa, a young man and unpublished, I became a mzungu, or a white man, but the Chichewa word also implies a spirit, a ghost figure, almost a goblin, a being so marginal as to be barely human." Funny- when I went to Ghana, I became an obroni, or a white person, but the Twi word also means, more generally, a foreigner. Perhaps not "marginal," per say, but often with that transient, different sense implied by that which Theroux describes.


One of those excellent moments when it seems as though the author has read your mind, thinks along the same wavelengths - coming at it from a different vein, sure, but ending up in the same general ballpark, and perhaps even the same bleacher section. Stumbling across an artist or particular song you'd since forgotten, or picking up the work of a favorite author... almost like having a good, long chat with an old friend- the sort that says "goodbye for now" instead of "goodbye," knows when to listen and when to talk, and is perfectly comfortable getting into a raging debate because there's a trust and stability in knowing even differences of opinion and long gaps of time can't endanger that deeper understanding and connection. Sure, sometimes my interjected commentary on Theroux is in a point of contention, but I'd consider our relationship superficial if we agreed all the time. Paul and I, reunited. Excellent.