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August 03, 2006
Quoth the English Major Forevermore
In Argentina, I read The Lone Pilgrim by Laurie Colwin. I also read a Frommer's guide, several Star Magazines, a week-old New York Sun and the entire hotel services handbook from my nightside table one drunken evening in Buenos Aires. Dial 187 for room service. They're open 24 hours. As for the Colwin, I am leaving it with Heather in Brooklyn, but wanted to write a bit about one of the passages, as it summarized and reflected a lot of what I was thinking about on the trip. Namely, the ideas of autonomy, accountability and personal responsibility and the ways the Argentinian culture differs from ours in respect to these points of conduct. Well...that and where I was to find my next dulce de leche fix.
I am way too hot to write about this intelligently but what struck me the most - and impressed me the most - was how much more freedom there was there. Things weren't overly explained and simplified the way they are here. Essentially, adults are expected to act like adults, and to know how to look after themselves without countless restrictions and rules and laws of deportment and so on. It was so refreshing, truly, to be given the freedom to take care of yourself and your needs as you saw fit. It was so refreshing, truly, to give up trying to control every surrounding and situation and just accept that things would be okay and that, if they weren't...that would be okay too.
It made an enormous impact on me, and one I'm not soon to forget. I want to think about it for a long time because I feel, in some way, that acting more like they do over there might make me a bit more content over here.
And here's the quote:
"My availability for experience inspired him, he said. One evening, with a look of beautiful affection on his face, he told me: 'The trouble with being prepared for everything the way I am is that one false move and you feel the world is falling apart. Last week, when I lost my keys, I thought I was going to disintegrate, remember? But you - you really aren't prepared for things, so you're much better at life than I am. If you hadn't been with me, I would have just gone to pieces. I would have paid a locksmith some huge sum of money. I would never have traced our trail back to that restaurant and found the keys under the chair. So maybe you're the one who's prepared and I am simply overprepared. You are a great object lesson to me.'"
I need to stop being overprepared. It's just not the way I want to keep on keeping. It's not helping anything.
First thing's first though. What I need to do, what I really really need to do?
I need to go home.
And how refreshing it is, truly, to feel I have one again.
Posted by Bree at August 3, 2006 01:26 PM