When everything is tragedy

This week more than twenty people lost their lives in an explosion. This week more than twenty families grieve the loss of loved ones. This week a world, once again, looks for reason and rationale. 

When everything is tragedy, where does one find hope? 

I don’t know the answer. I know that there are cries for justice. Cries for a cessation to needless killing. Cries for understanding, for tolerance, for recourse.

But where should we look? What is the meaning, the purpose? Why does it keep happening? 

It feels as if we’re on the edge of something, and pretty soon it’s going to tip. What will we find on the other side?

When everything is tragedy, where does one find love?

Back From Abroad

To wit, I’ve been back stateside now for nearly a month. I had every intention of keeping this blog going while I travelled through Europe, but there was so little time to sit and ruminate, let alone write. 

I did finish On the Road, which I started on the flight from Toronto to Amsterdam. I think I wrapped up the book on the ferry ride from Swinoujscie, Poland to Ystad, Sweden. Since being back, I’ve read a few more. Right now I’m working through Brian Weiss’s Many Lives, Many Masters. Most of the time back has been spent working, or applying to jobs, and practicing music. 

I’m enjoying the warm Florida weather and a cool tropical breeze out on the back patio. My dog is lounging by my feet, drooling contentedly. I had started a blog post two weeks ago, but it’s been lost in the nether regions of cyberspace, likely never to be seen again. I was lamenting the fact that many people will call someone who is well-read nerdy. 

Mind you, it’s been a long time since someone called me a nerd. Dork, yes. But I’ve been a gym rat for years, at least I was before I developed RA. I was also an avid partier, so people forgave my intelligence and habit of being well-read. No, I was volunteering, writing in one of my notebooks, and someone asked if I liked to read. Of course I like to read. She said that she didn’t, but her son did. He’d even started a book club with his friends, and was trying to read a book a week this year. I thought that was an admirable aspiration. She called him a nerd. So, I ask you, when did reading books & being generally well-educated become nerdy?

That was the crux of that lost post. More later!

Day Of

There’s excitiement, waiting for the day of travel. Richard (my traveling companion for this trip) and I just had southwestern style egg burritos. His cat Jay is now wandering around the dining room table looking for scraps. In less than an hour we head to the airport and prepare to take off for Amsterdam.

This is a new country for me – Netherlands. It’s one of those places that, in my youth, I had always joked about going to. Prevalent drug use, partying, the looser moral systems. I suppose I thought that as I got older I may not go. Now, in going, I’m actually excited to visit the canals, see the open air markets and take a walking tour.

It may not be quite what I had anticipated in my youth, but I look forward to the journey of discovery that is Amsterdam.

Going Places

I’m laying in bed reading, and I felt like writing some. Doctor Strange is playing on the television, background noise at this point, as I’ve probably watched it half a dozen times since it arrived courtesy of the Disney Movie Club two weeks ago. My mutt, One, can’t decide if he wants to lay on the bed with me or be let out. He’ll jump down, run around the room, and then half hop up, waiting for me to lift his back half. He’s half-boxer, half-pit bull, as lazy as he is spoiled, and I’ll miss him when I leave on Friday.

The time has come for travelling back to Europe, a 24-day trek through six countries and nine cities. 

I’m thinking of course of the London attacks today, and wishing for a safer world. I’m thinking of last year’s trip to Ireland and Scotland, and wonder why I didn’t explore more of the world before. I’m thinking of the stack of unread books I’m leaving in wait for me, and of the beat-up copy of On the Road I’ll be taking with me. And I’m thinking of what I’ll do when I get back.

One is curled up beside me, as I reread Susan Orlean’s intro to The Best American Travel Writing 2007. This passage stood out: “I’d also figured out something about the nature of travel. For the first time, it seemed clear to me that travel is not about finding something: it’s about getting lost – that is, it is about losing yourself in a place and a moment.”

Well, here’s to getting lost!

Atlanta

Hanging out up in Atlanta for a few days. Just had a good breakfast with old friends, and talked about the film industry here in town. It’s thriving, and with all the growth it seems that Atlanta is really prospering from it. I wonder if the state will keep its tax credits as is, or if it’ll get greedy like Florida did. 

There was a time when Florida was Hollywood East, and Disney and Universal had studios built west of Orlando. Seeing the potential revenues the State decided to get a bigger slice of the pie. Then the industry said, “no”, and took the pie away almost completely. I watched Paper Towns for the first time recently, and was amazed at the Orlando location. How had I not heard that it was filming there?

Turns out, it wasn’t. North Carolina hosted that production, and stock footage was used of the downtown Orlando area. The same kind of thing happened with Fresh Off the Boat, the tv series filmed in California but based in Orlando. It’s an interesting phenomenon. I guess we’ll see what happens here in Atlanta…