Latitudes Longitudes : Souvenir

SOUVENIR field guides for the artful explorer 路 volume one 路 issue two

field guides for the artful explorer MAY 2014 Volume 1 Issue 2

EDITORS E. Rhondeau Morgan

Ann Whittaker

CONTRIBUTORS Katharine Anderson · Heidi Apples · Lucy Aspray Erin Brown · Hannah Chudleigh Allysa Herzinger · Jen Larsen · Kiara Mucci Sabriel Parker · Josina Reaves · Danielle M. Sabol Betsy Sullivan · Bex Wright

DESIGN & LAYOUT E. Rhondeau Morgan COVER PHOTOGRAPH Jen Larsen Copyright © 2014 Latitudes Longitudes All rights reserved.

IMA

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AGE

L ET TER F R OM A N ED ITOR

Turning this page you will find on its reverse the end result of a mild obsession. “Float pens?!” you might say, “Really?” I can see the raised eyebrows, the wry smile. I get it: who goes to Italy, sees the striped Duomo of Siena — this medieval marvel of stark stone against Gothic curvature, a collaboration 800 years gone but still today striking, somehow also modern — and commemorates it with a plastic pen which, incidentally, when tipped upside-down animates a white lily into the hand of the city’s patron Saint Catherine?

Maybe I should wave it off laughing; a folly of yesteryear, one of many strange pursuits in childhood. But the truth is this: at the time it was to me a very serious endeavor and, also, I was fourteen. Old enough.

It all started with a magazine, actually — House Beautiful? Country Living? One of the monthlies we’d scavenge from my grandmother’s house — an article profiling some author or other mentioned her collection of float pens, amassed over decades of travel and now housed in a custom-built shelving space along her studio wall, picture windows facing out. “They’re dreadfully kitsch,” she had explained (and I’m paraphrasing), “but to me that’s the delight of the thing: to have lived, loved, and experienced a place only to bring it home bottled up and distilled down to one sailing moment.”

Something about that got to me. I wasn’t going to fall prey to keychain schlock or twee pencil token — this was informed! This was ironic! This was outrageously sophisticated stuff. Within a year I had done myself proud, ten pens in a cup on my desk: Fort Monroe, the Liberty Bell, Orchard House Museum, Amish Country, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (notable for its unique use of metallic detailing to imitate moonlight on countryside edges). Friends began to take note and from their adventures would arrive Alaskan sled dogs or Swedish herrings, a red convertible zigzagging down Lombard Street and into my cup, plink, plink, plink.

I have nearly fifty. But for years now my little collection has only ever garnered dust.

Occasional forays into corner souvenir shops might have offered up a new cup-mate, but time had changed production values and I found newer models of the classic Eskesen clunky and more corporate-blah than retro-charming. Through various moves and school semesters the pens were shunted about in their collective cup and yet I never dreamed of dumping them; always knew exactly where to find them; would sometimes, in passing, stop to simply smile benignly at the little relics, perhaps touch one finger to pen-tip, remembering. Whatever they once had been, they are now a small part of me. | Ann Whittaker

And that is the point, isn’t it? The real meat of the thing. To have been something and to still become, to take on new countries and from them build the vast realm within.

I mean, I’m not recommending plastic pens to be the very best building stuff. But they’re a start.

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Come As You Are

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Words to Remember

Sabriel Parker

Erin Brown

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Flesh of Flowers

54 Doorways

Betsy Sullivan

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70 Collect

Made in China

Jen Larsen

Ann Whittaker

Kiara Mucci

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Comfort Where You Can Find It

Lucy Aspray

Josina Reaves

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A Field to Lie In

Paris Imperfect The Camaraderie of Solitude

Alyssa Herzinger

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Jim Thompson House

Danielle M. Sabol

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On Chieow Laan Lake

Katharine Anderson

Bex Wright

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Une CrĂŞpe au Nutella, S.V. P.

Heidi Apples

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13° 41’ 29.5368’’ N 104° 6’ 0.4788’’ E

Antique find, Cambodia; lodestar to long-ago explorer.

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COME AS YOU ARE

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.”

— Wendell Berry —

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| E. Rhondeau Morgan IMAGE

Winter in the Pacific North West is mild and pale; the trees wear muted greens and greys with the shock of black bark that digs deep into earth of the same color. Fog and mist huddle on the coast, covering every moment with beaded drops from across the sea. I made the pilgrimage from Seattle to Aberdeen, the birthplace of Kurt Cobain and a fittingly melancholy landscape for my displaced heart, the best kind of dismal place. A sign greets you as you drive in: “Come as you are.” It’s an old logging town with a historic district; a sad cowboy bar and several second hand shops inhabit the old main street, a river runs bleak through the middle, rusted bridges and miscellaneous logging equipment lying faded and tired on the thin beach.

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The tumult of the sea is especially fierce in the winter, and that is where I was headed. I understand her violence, I too feel savage, wild, and inconsolable. That restless displacement is why I began to travel to begin with; to seek out a place to call my own, to find my name written on some ancient column or hear it called in a foreign tongue.

I wanted to carry these places on and under my skin, let them tattoo and name me, as I wasn’t satisfied with my own.

I park my car in Ocean City State Park and walk the half-mile to the beach. I have almost nothing with me, only a notebook and small leather bag to bring home any little thing the sea washes up for me. The trail cuts through yellow beach grass and the branches of various trees and shrubs are dark and bare.

At first, the beach looks empty of all life. I sit on a bleached log and watch the sunlight glint on the shallow waves. A flock of some tiny bird, almost imperceptible, so small, flies furiously close to the water breaking on the shore. Seagulls call to each other and I can see the movement of crabs or insects in the sand. The waves fall in rhythm, breaking into each other’s bodies with crashing power.

I am not alone here. This is a breathing ecosystem, moving and living with an interconnectedness that I can only catch glimpses of. I dig my hands into the dark sand: it is cold and damp. I feel this place inhale and exhale and I move my body and lungs with it. I touch the earth to remember that I belong to this place too, that the same electricity and unknowable substance that moves these beings moves me as well.

After several hours of rooting and remembering, I begin the drive back to Aberdeen. I think about the things I brought back with me, a smooth piece of wood, a lavender colored shell. But my souvenir is another: home, one more place to call my own. Another bone that grows with the name of that place etched into the marrow. I am intrinsically connected to my environment, I am made up of the same atoms molecules as the sand, the waves, and the ravens that flock behind me when I sit still long enough. Ă?

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IMAGES

| Dan Peck

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FLESH of FLOWERS WORDS + IMAGES | Betsy Sullivan

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A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future. ­­— COCO CHANEL —

It’s been nearly a month since I’ve returned home from Dubai, and still I cannot bring myself to wash the white alpaca poncho that I wore to the fragrance souk. Redolent with a perfume named, exotically and intoxicatingly enough, “Flesh of Flowers,” the scent transcends anything remotely fleshly: it smells like fabric that has been washed in the sea and left to dry in the sun, sweetened by a light musk with hints of night blooming jasmine. The scent is pure, clean, and, somehow, despite its origin in the United Arab Emirates, insinuates something familiar each time I breathe it in. I wish had the tools to create a scratch and sniff function on this page so you, too, could wash into this symphony of sea, light, and jasmine.

I’ve long been obsessed with our olfactory and memory connections, and I thrill when I experience that heady deja-vu when scents come together in a mélange so perfect that we are transported into another time. Diane Ackerman, essayist extraordinaire, puts in best in A Natural History of the Senses: “the charm of language is that, though it’s human-made, it can on rare occasions capture emotions and sensations which aren’t. But the physiological links between the smell and language centers of the brain are pitifully weak. Not so the links between the smell and memory centers, a route that carries us nimbly across time and space.” And we, too, “nimbly” transverse a landscape of time with the magical memory of smell. The combination of brine-y sea air, sifted with beached kelp and Wintergreen gum, reminds me of playing gin rummy with my Grammy Anita; a certain combination of Anais-Anais, rain-dampened fur coats, bourbon, and pine trees reminds me of being a little one in the Eighties; I’m transported to Santa Barbara when I catch a whiff of eucalyptus trees and sticky tar on an ocean breeze; and orange blossoms, a promise of rain, and the exhalations of traffic will always remind me of my first spring in Los Angeles.

Likewise, some of my most coveted memories of travel are attuned to my nose. Even though I’ve since lost my pink-lensed Chanel sunglasses that I wore to clubs from midnight until daybreak (and thank goodness for that loss — quelle fashion oopsy-daisy!), I am taken back to the mish-mash of late nights and early mornings in Rome when I recall the ineffable smell of the Eternal City at daybreak: a watery, medieval tone of myriad fountains co-mingled with the exhaust from motorini, cappucini and fresh cornetti. Or, the moment when I felt a profound sense of spirituality spring upon me at a Shinto shrine in the Ueno district of Tokyo: the steady drizzle drew everything around me into crisp focus, and the gentle scent

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of sandalwood incense — richer and headier with something vanilla-y — still underscores my personal meditation practice. I still have the same package of incense that I bought in Ueno, a small purple box impressed with silver Japanese characters that was filled with slender poles of incense, and the scent has remained undiluted for over ten years. That said, some travel smells aren’t all that soul pleasing, just indelible. For example, spending a week in the Colombian jungle, a once in a lifetime, off-the-grid experience, taught me that mildew breeds mildew, and guurl best be on her toes unless she wants to rock up to a fete in Cartagena smelling like something that came out of, well, the jungle. (I ended up caging limes from the bartender and squeezing the citrus oil on my dress in the ladies room. It made do — just.)

So, this lingering obsession with scent is why visiting the fragrance souk in Dubai was number one on my list. (Well, that, plus I wanted to sample this infamous oud that Tom Ford uses in his new, extraordinarily priced, fragrance line.) The origin of the word perfume takes its Latinate roots from per fumar, which loosely translates to mean “to fill with smoke.” The Arabic toilette repertoire is extensive, and includes a technique called “fumigation” or “incensing,” during which women waft incense into their abayas with woodsy aromatics such as sandalwood and oud. The ritual also includes applying oils and lotions to just-washed skin, followed by an eau de toilette applied directly to clothing.

When I arrived at the fragrance souk, the array of scents was overwhelming, even to a scent-junkie like myself. Also the medium was foreign: rather than a milky lotion or a clear perfume, the lotion was translucent and dyed with bright, pastel hues that didn’t elucidate the origin of scent much. “Flesh of Flowers,”

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if I remember correctly, was a lurid, pistachio green. While I opted out of the “fumigation step,” mostly because I didn’t have an abaya to scent, I loosed myself to the experts. The perfumers patiently heard my desires to get an “arabic perfume experience,’ and selected the scents for me, a woman massaging lotion into my skin and a man dousing my poncho with a clothing fragrance. I will admit: I was nervous about smelling like I’d just bathed in a vat of too-strong fragrance. I worried that my Western sense of smell would find the scent too heady, too exotic, too foreign.

But, in the fragrance souk, much like Dubai and its culture at large, I was chastened by my assumptions: “Flesh of Flowers” was natural, beautiful, and I felt, somehow, more wise and feminine than when I first visited with my unscented skin. While the rich, woody scent of pure oud proved to be too strong for my nose, the delicacy of “Flesh of Flowers” fit me like a gossamer gown. Before I went to Dubai, I was irrationally frightened by what might come: I judged the abayas as anti-feminist, and I steeled myself to be judged for my western-ness. Instead, I discovered that, amidst the sand dunes and the skyscrapers straight out of a sci-fi scene, the women in Dubai wear the same skinny jeans that I do under their abayas. And so, “Flesh of Flowers,” while you might not become my signature scent (I’m still content with almond oil and Tom Ford’s exquisite Neroli Portofino), I can’t bear to wash you from my clothing. The juxtaposition of tradition, post-modernity, and familiarity just does something to my nose — and my heart. Í

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MADE IN CHINA

WORDS + IMAGES | Ann Whittaker

As an undergrad, my Elvish was much better than my Italian. I knew where Mirkwood was located on a map of Middle Earth, but was constantly getting El Salvador and Ecuador mixed up on my Latin American history quizzes. So, as I became anxious for an adventure (definitely more Took-like) I — naturally — set my sights on China. It felt like the most personally uncharted landscape and culture I could experience, and yet as adventurous as I had hoped to be, I ended up bringing back a souvenir that would remind me not so much of my time in China as it would home: an Elven dress, custom-made; navy blue silk and a silver cloak, fit for a Galadriel.

I was desperately homesick, and the hobbit in me found it difficult to navigate such unfamiliar country. Day one I encountered baby birds on skewers, delicious fried dough covered in evaporated milk, brutalist architecture, the nosuch-thing-as-a-line phenomenon, and discovered my first hole-in-the-wall noodle house. Survival instincts kicked in adrenaline-fueled as I learned to cross busy highways one lane at a time, standing on the yellow-dashed lines as cars sped all around me in all directions. This was not my American desert mountain home. Eyes were wide. Heart was racing.

I had packed my bags for five months, mostly with teaching supplies as I joined forty-something college students

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to teach English at a private boarding school on the outskirts of Wuhan. Construction paper, scissors, stickers, glue, paper clips, pencils, treats for bribes. Dr. Seuss books, coloring books, Shel Silverstein, random dollar-store toys, and, of course, The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Turns out teaching is a hard, hard job. I quickly found out that my lesson plans were boring and my patience was thin.

One of the first phrases my students learned was, “Teacher!

Candy!” with accompanying palm-face-up hands in your face. When one child wanted to show you his Gong Fu moves t h e e n t i re c l a s s w o u l d c o m m e n c e p r a c t i c i n g t h e i r round-house kicks. On me.

My idealist dreams of teaching Chinese kids English were quickly flattened.

So I relapsed to my obsession, something more familiar: turning pages to follow the fellowship of nine through forests, mines, ominous mountains. My lesson plans suffered as I spent more time reading about hobbits, elves, and dwarves every evening than I did on working out the details syntax, nouns and alphabet for the following day’s activities.

Despite my intense longing for home, I really did make some effort to experience and absorb Chinese culture and heritage.

I loyally showed up every morning for Gong Fu lessons; dumplings were a culinary epiphany; I was smitten by jade jewelry; I made my own pilgrimage to the Shaolin temple and stayed in the monastery; I could have ridden horses with Tibetan exiles in Xiahe for the rest of my life. At the end of my five months I even cried at the thought of leaving my little students. China had indeed fascinated me.

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My elven dress was maybe a bit of a compromise: something that had caught my imagination since I was a kid, made from Chinese silk. All of my adventures — real and imagined — come together as one.

On an afternoon off we traveled into the city center to look for a tailor. The others wanted traditional Chinese dresses, tops, and pants. We found a small little shop tucked in-between forgettable shops. The tailors didn’t speak English; I only spoke Elvish. I drew pictures of my dress, and they looked at me with confusion. Eventually after a few sketches and lots of pointing enough was understood that they signaled for me to choose the material, and began to take my measurements. They pointed to a date on the calendar, and we made plans to return.

For the next two weeks or so I worried that I had just spent a mini fortune on a dress that could go completely wrong. Since I was already a distracted teacher, my lessons didn’t suffer much more as I worried about the possible outcomes of my confusing sketches and directions.

We returned to Wuhan’s center on the agreed-upon date. This time I brought with me a picture of Cate Blanchett in Galadriel garb to show the tailors. We walked through the door, and they smiled. They were ready. The dresses were finished. The girls put on their gorgeous silk Chinese dresses. We giggled and clapped in approval. My order came out last. I was nervous.

Did they understand my outlandish request? Yes. Somehow, miraculously, they did. I clapped my hands and giggled and most likely let out a bit of a squeal. I showed them my Cate Blanchett Galadriel, and they seemed relieved to finally know why I had requested such a ridiculous design.

From my five long months I brought back an entire bag of souvenirs: Gong Fu uniforms for my brothers, silk robes for my sisters, jade and wood-carved jewelry for myself; traditional paintings, swatches of fabrics, Tibetan satchels, a stack of recipes. And when my family gathered for my welcome home celebration? I wore my Elven silk dress. Made in China. Í

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43° 46’ 15.7188’’ N 11° 14’ 52.8036’’ E

First tour of Italy; two people, ten days, forty-two gelato spoons. Top hit: Florentine Vivoli. The Usual: melone, fichi, nocce di cocco.

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During my time at university, I was given the opportunity to travel to France and teach English in a small primary school for five weeks: some of the sweetest of my 23 years. Being from England, I am not used to being in the sun every day and it transformed me: stress fell away, my usual perfectionism departed with it, and I came away with some of my favourite souvenirs from any trip I’ve taken. As a photographer, I am used to composing shots and being able to edit out any perceived imperfections, but for this trip I took only a simple pair of Kodak disposables and they created the magic for me. Returning to England after four weeks in Dijon and one in Paris and developing the photos, I found them to be totally flawed: wonky rows of Parisian apartments, out of focus Ladurée macarons and pictures of the Tour Eiffel that were mostly obscured by my finger.

Totally flawed, and totally beautiful. My time in France hadn’t been carefully planned out or styled, it had been a carefree, flipping-off-my-sandals-and-running-around-in-the-park-with-friends kind of month and these souvenirs managed to capture it, absolutely and wonderfully imperfectly.

— LUCY ASPRAY

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The Camaraderie of Solitude WORDS | Alyssa Herzinger IMAGES | Ann Whittaker

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Despite considering myself a generally level-headed person, I’m afraid that watching a few hundred too many romantic comedies slightly warped my vision of what it would be like to travel alone. Of course, I knew that I would never meet my soul mate while wandering aimlessly through the Irish countryside, but deep down in that place right under your fifth rib, where you can keep ideas without fully admitting them to yourself, I was also fairly certain that was exactly what was going to happen.

While the soul mate hasn’t appeared, on Irish country roads or elsewhere, I still managed to fall madly in love during my solo travels. Twice, in fact. First, I fell in love with solitude, and shortly thereafter, I fell in love with friendships on the road. It’s the fast-paced dance between these two extremes that draws me so incessantly to strike out again and again on my own.

The solitude of traveling by myself was not an enormous adjustment. Back to when I first began dreaming of traveling the world, it was always alone. Child-me, who was terrified of being in the house alone, giddily pictured strolling through museums, climbing faraway mountains, eating gelato in a piazza, and exploring the hilly land of my ancestors—always alone. I’m an unfailingly private person (we try to avoid the word hermit), usually preferring to read a book instead of leaving the house when given a choice. Phone calls from my mother while I was at university always ended with advice to “go out and meet people” that almost always went unheeded.

Even with a long history of having no company but myself, traveling on my own involved a remoteness I’d never before experienced. The ability and responsibility of making every decision myself was both exhilarating and exhausting. Waking up in a new city with the option to do everything or nothing or anything in between, I most often

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found myself simply wandering (most of the time it was on purpose, though my map-reading skills do leave a bit to be desired), with no intention other than to look at the world. The days were anything I wanted them to be, and I passed several without exchanging more than a handful of words with another creature.

Lately, the merits of solitude have been discussed at length. It’s essential to the creative process, it’s the only way to achieve inner peace, so on and so forth. Despite all the reinforcement, I feared myself to be on the brink of misanthropism after declining yet another social invitation. But then, as I reflected on the times I’ve spent traveling toute seule, I began to realize that my coveted solitude had, in fact, opened the door to my

It is indeed, as Dickens said, “a wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret.” All people their own hearts, all hearts their own secrets, the whisperings of which more readily reveal themselves when quiet overtakes the great city.

Masked by solitude, I could see the traces of secrets everywhere — in the subdued posture of a woman who paid her bus fare without looking at the driver, the undertone of pleading in the voice of the man on his cell phone, the worried glance

you either get through nothing but the niceties, or you slip out of the dross and commune, one golden soul with another

most cherished encounters on the road: those that made friends of strangers.

of the child back at his mother as he paused on the steps to school.

Sitting on a bench or letting my feet carry me where they would, I was free to contemplate all the people around me. The story each person carried, full of beauty and darkness and hope and tragedy, appeared in script on their faces. Somewhat apart from the world, I could observe, a narrator with imagined omniscience.

And paradoxically, even with physical distance, as well as that of language, culture, and age, I felt in these moments more strongly a part of humanity than if it were to press in on me from all sides of a train carriage.

Clearly, my desire to be alone was not due to latent misanthropy. On the contrary, I couldn’t stop wondering about people, yearning to know their individual stories. And rather antithetically, traveling solo allowed me to do just that.

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On first meetings with people in your own town, conversations generally follow prescribed guidelines. You discuss your work, your hobbies, maybe your family. Rarely does it venture into

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the realm of feelings or the subjects of your daydreams.

But conversations on the road operate on a different plane. Removed from their everyday trappings, people shed the façades they put on every morning at home. If you’re willing to listen, words will fly from their mouths, desperate to be heard by someone else, to be recognized, to be encouraged. The fear of judgment is a glue under our tongue that prevents us from speaking our truest dreams. To profess those things to people we know and love is a risk—they might laugh or belittle; they might see toads instead of jewels falling from our lips. But with a stranger, the risk is lessened. You’ll never seem them again, so what does it matter if they think your dream is farfetched? With strangers, we are not limited by the roles we play at home, and travelers are an intrepid breed, unlikely to consider anything out of reach. To confide a dream in a traveler is to gain an enthusiastic ally. In my experience, these moments of true connection have a relationship with solitude that is essentially cause and effect. Even in the moments I expect to be most alone, I find myself time and again surrounded by people Anne Shirley would have instantly recognized as “kindred spirits.”

Huddled with my luggage in a Paris bus station, I reviewed the previous year in my mind.

A familiar, bittersweet sensation of sadness to leave my most recent home and nervous excitement for the unknown future had my mind running wild and my heart racing to catch up. Had I been with a friend, we would have giggled together when the seat across from me became host to a one-woman symphony of snores. Since I was alone, I glanced at the perfectly-coiffed, elderly woman next to me as we both struggled to hold in our laughter. Our shared response broke down the glass wall that precludes people from making eye contact in public spaces. She told me about being nervous to go visit her son’s family, and how different Paris was today than when she was a child. I told her that I didn’t know what I wanted to do next in my life, and she said I should see the world, especially l’Australie.

Our interaction lasted no more than fifteen minutes, and we never even learned each other’s names. But as my bus pulled up and we did la bise, we both had the most genuine of smiles, for we were parting as friends.

Then there are the remote places, where I didn’t expect any interactions simply because I didn’t expect any people.

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After walking for hours down narrow country roads to a prehistoric and barely noticeable stone circle in middle-of-nowhere Scotland, a minivan disguised as a bike rack pulled up. Two kids tumbled out and immediately enlisted me in a game of tag, as their parents unloaded cameras, lenses and tripods. When I collapsed onto the long grass, finally accepting defeat by that limitless supply of energy available to children everywhere, the parents and I introduced ourselves. We were soon deep in conversation about the history of religion, and for the next hour shared our perspectives and taught each other in a way that seems possible only at an ancient, druidic ruin.

And then. Then there are the people you meet on the road who make you believe in fate.

A brief encounter rekindles the dormant spark of your long-buried dream, or an unimportant comment contains exactly the advice you need to hear. With a seven-hour bus ride ahead of me, I had resigned myself to simply trying to get a little sleep. I’d definitely not imagined that the entire journey would be spent in a conversation that had both my seatmate and I drying our eyes within minutes, forging a fast friendship that was destined to last far longer than the bus ride.

Solo travel turns everything on its head. At home, you spend your time fostering relationships with your coworkers or classmates and deepening friendships with people you’ve known forever. Friendships on the road are fleeting, soon returning you to your solitude. You form a deep connection with someone and they leave the next morning.

The window for connecting with people is so small, you either get through nothing but the niceties, or you slip out of the dross and commune, one golden soul with another. In solitude you’re vulnerable to loneliness, yes, but that vulnerability is also precisely what enables two strangers to open up to one another, for however long their paths intersect.

There is beauty in bidding farewell and gracefully letting go, to say with Emerson, “O friend, we part only to meet again on a higher platform...more each other’s because we are more our own,” and to understand, as he did, the dichotomy in the camaraderie of solitude: “The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander selfacquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone, for a season, that it may exalt its conversation or society.” Though my desk may be covered in ticket stubs and photographs from around the world, my true souvenirs are the moments I’ve spent environed with friends met while alone on the road. And so I’ll bid you au revoir, goodbye for now. When we meet again, we’ll be better for being more our own. Í

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WORDS + IMAGES | Danielle M. Sabol

I

learned of Jim Thompson and his brand while preparing for my annual business trip to Bangkok. Having only seen the city at night before, I vowed to spend less time in windowless meeting rooms and more time exploring under the hot Thai sun. After perusing several travel blogs and clicking through photographs, I decided that visiting the Jim Thompson House was at the top of my punch list.

Jim Thompson’s life was destined for legend from the very start. Born to a wealthy American family and blessed with a Princeton education, he pursued a career as an architect before becoming a CIA agent during World War II. He was stationed in North Africa, Europe and eventually Bangkok, where he found himself entranced by the distinct architecture, culture, and hand-woven Thai silk that secured a strong hold of his interest. He fell in love with the families that passed down the elegant skills to each generation. Once the war ended in 1946 he was released back to the United States, but carried with him a dream to return to the ‘Venice of the East’ as a citizen with an ambitious business plan to revive Thailand’s dying silk industry. He was confident there could be a demand and market created for the exquisite silk made by a select few families who conducted their artful expertise in cottage villages. Armed with a book full of American clients and a team of native weavers, he carefully lay the foundation of which his empire was built.

Today a museum, his House quietly sits above the Gulf of Thailand, a welcomed sanctuary many travelers seek to escape the heat and lingering stench of congested downtown Bangkok. There is a lush canopy of palm-like leaves that cast patterns of angular shadows throughout the stone ground.

The six cottage homes that scatter the property were completed in 1959, each designed and built

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by Thompson himself. In the middle of chaos the House appears locked in time, a place that shows Thailand as it was. The interiors remain exactly as he left them. An array of beautifully curated art and furniture fill the rooms where Thompson exercised his reputation as an exciting host and entertained diplomats, actors, artists, and socialites with many parties. However, while on vacation with friends in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia, the ‘King of Silk’ mysteriously vanished. To this day no sight or trace of him has ever been found.

I was mesmerized by his story and the mysterious girls who methodically separated the silk from the valuable caterpillar inside the yellow cocoon. The vibrant strands of silk hung delicately from wooden looms and, due to their sheen, seemed to give off an ambient glow. In the middle of a popular tourist attraction I began to understand the importance of tradition and quality.

To me, Jim Thompson was someone who valued authenticity and appreciated the art of things made well. He enjoyed a culture so drastically different than that of his privileged upbringing and created opportunity for a nation’s failing art form. I like to view the pieces in his namesake label as his passion embodied. While I didn’t buy his signature scarf while in Thailand, I do find myself appreciating the way things are made in a new way. The days of desiring quantity fade further and further behind me as I learn to cultivate a lifestyle of quality. Í

SOUVENIR 41

41° 16’ 14.2752’’ S 173° 17’ 2.2740’’ E

Sandals, leather, colloq. “Roman” or “slave.”

Standard issue uniform grade Nelson College for Girls. To be paired with kilt and jumper unless you are Simone _____, flame-tressed form prefect preferring her feet bare, in class and otherwise.

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WORDS + IMAGE | Bex Wright

Head back, feet up, and bottle of Chang in hand, I was soaking in that glorious longtail boat ride. As I was drifting, the conversations and laughter of others around me was hazy. I closed my eyes, took a big breath in, and just let life happen.

With my brain tuning in and out of conversations surrounding the boat’s company, I became aware of the silence that abruptly fell upon the crew. Realizing that I was missing out on something, kind of like being the only one not in on a joke, I looked passed the heads of others and towards what everyone else seemed to be staring at. And there it was.

We turned with the path of the lake, and I was immediately given this gift that would be mine forever – not that I had a choice in the matter. When we turned the corner, I was gifted with something that I can promise you very few people will ever find in their lifetime. I was gifted with peace. Now, before you roll your eyes at me, let me tell you that I am aware that this sounds so horribly cliché. And trust me, I have tried to spin it a million different ways, but I believe in calling a spade a spade, and well… the gift of peace was my spade.

As we turned, we were welcomed with the world’s offering to us. The rocks were mountainous in a way that was so unique to the river. There were small patches of forest just growing in the middle of the river, and when you so gently glided passed the unexplainable patches of greenery, I swear you could smell the leaves. There was this cooing of sorts coming from the distance; it was as gentle as it was strong. We soon learned that it was the conversations of monkeys that resided in the treetops. How marvelous it was to be an eavesdropper to those conversations. However, what seemed to make my heart stop was the calmness that you were so convinced you could reach out and touch. It was the silence, the stillness and the respect for it all that really reached down your throat, grabbed your breath, and threw it to the wind. It was the respect that the world has for this river, and the river had for this world, that allowed me to understand the meaning of “peace.”

There are times where you will feel peaceful, restful, calm. But when you are gifted with peace – pure, real peace – you will so quickly realize its rarity, its fleeting beauty. It’s hard to explain, as are all intangibles, but it’s also too life changing not to at least try.

Finding peace is something that we may go their entire lives looking for. It’s not something that you plan to pick up, not something for sale, nor something you are ever prepared for. Yet when you come across it, if you’re ever so lucky to do so, you will hold onto it with your life.

Finding peace means your heart is now a little bit bigger, your mind is a bit more open, and your soul is slightly brighter. It means you know what it is to lose your breath to the world, and have it given back to you, filling your lungs with life. Finding peace means you can return to wherever it is that you came from with a calming in your mind that will allow you to take on the everyday world with a bit more ease and a little more grace. Finding peace shows you that all those other times where you have felt “at peace”, you were so terribly mistaken, for the moment where you find the gift, your heart sings out and your mind awakes from what feels like a lifetime of slumber.

I don’t know what other corners of the world are offering peace as a souvenir, but I know I found mine in Khao Sok, Thailand, on the Chieow Laan Lake, in the middle of nowhere, with my head back, a bottle of Chang in my hand.

Í

SOUVENIR 45

INGREDIENTS

3 eggs 1 cup whole milk 3 Tbsp butter, melted 1 Tbsp vegetable oil 1/4 cup water 1 tsp vanilla bean paste 1 1/4 cup flour 1/2 tsp salt DIRECTIONS Whisk together the eggs, milk, butter, vegetable oil, water, and vanilla bean paste in a medium mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and the salt. Slowly mix the flour/salt in with the wet ingredients using your whisk. Batter should be runny and smooth.

I cook the crepes one at a time, on a small-medium frying pan.

Spray pan with non-stick spray and warm over low-medium heat. When warm, pour 1/3 cup batter into the pan and swivel the pan in a circular motion until the batter covers it completely. Let the first side cook until firm enough to flip and the bottom begins to golden (about 1-2 minutes). Then flip the crepe and cook on the other side for the same amount of time.

to try: Nutella, bananas, whipped cream | Strawberries, crème fraÎche, powdered sugar | Figs, goat cheese, honey Goat cheese, blueberries, sliced almonds | Peanut butter, bananas, honey

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P ossibly the most splendid

activity one can do while in Paris, pleasing each and every one of the senses, is to eat a crêpe on the street. Oh, please tell me you’ve had the chance to do so!

The sounds: elegant bustling on the footpath, horns tooting poetically (everything’s a poem in Paris), strangers passing by, narrating tales in all the romance of a French accent.

Sights: Grand boulevards, row upon row of Parisian rooftops, beckoning you to dream of the lives of those lucky enough to live behind the curtains.

Paris wears grey so well, the city stylish even when sleeping.

The smell of browning batter, lavished on a pan and swirling into crêpe creation lures you to a hole-in-the-wall crêperie. Is that fromage I can smell, bubbling beneath a galette? Or perhaps it’s chestnut cream. Yes, I’m quite certain that’s it.

Oh, but wait; here comes the jar of Nutella. I’m done. ( “Une crêpe au Nutella, s’il vous plaît.” ) And that first bite … cue the accordion: you’re going to want to dance in the street. A Nutella crêpe is the food of love in the city of love — at once exciting and comforting, sounding-lookingsmelling-feeling-tasting like Paris. Í

WORDS | Heidi Apples

ILLUSTRATION | Hannah Chudleigh RECIPE | Ann Whittaker

SOUVENIR 47

WORDS TO REMEMBER

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WORDS + IMAGES

Erin Brown

There are coffee shops all over New York City that I frequent solely for their bathrooms. It’s a reality of the 18-hour day, and Starbucks has become shorthand for pitstop: a ubiquitous, anonymous loo, where no one asks questions, so long as you look well-bathed and well-intentioned. No Pregnant-Lady pretending, no pleading with the gas station attendant for the key.

But there is one bathroom, in one coffee shop, that I frequent for an entirely different reason.

Squat and unremarkable, situated on a block clinging to the outer edge of Morningside Heights, the Hungarian Pastry Shop is the kind of joint you walk right past on your way to better things, never knowing the best thing was right there, all along, baking and brewing just behind that grimy screen door. It has a straggly sort of charm to it that is more Old New York than it is old-world, with strong american coffee served in tooth-chipping mugs, and incongruous immigrant mashups filling the pastry case--a chocolate éclair sweating next to the walnut hamentashen--serving as a reminder of the neighborhood’s melting pot past.

You order at the counter; if you’re taking it to go they’ll put your pastries in a box and tie it with string; if you’re staying they’ll take your name and bring your order to your table, green check tucked under your plate. In the Pastry Shop’s fifty three years in the shadow of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the only things that have changed are the refrigerator and the coffee machine.

There are no electrical outlets, and no wifi, yet it is a place where people come to hole up. Columbia University students brood in every corner, adding pastry creme stains to the marginalia of their textbooks. Writers burn through Bics and legal pads and cup after cup of coffee. Locals bicker about charter schools as they pass one another different sections of the Times. Savvy foreigners, looking for a bit of respite from the breakneck rate of table turnover in Manhattan, sit at the sidewalk tables and smoke whole packs of brown cigarettes in between sips of espresso.

And everyone uses the bathroom.

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When you first step into the little water closet, it looks like any other that survived the 1970s in New York--walls covered in hand-scrawled messages with varying degrees of legibility, the kind you tune out unless, of course, you’re looking for a good time, and the phone number of where to find it. But not at the Hungarian Pastry Shop.

Here, the bathroom graffiti come in stanzas. A whole poem by Rudolf Steiner runs the length of the mirror; e.e. cummings occupies the door jamb; a verse from Blind Willy McTell hits you at eye level when you’re on the throne. There are quips and quotes and confessions in every language. Vaclav Havel’s exclamation ‘Pravda a láska musí zvítězit nad lží a nenávistí!’ hovers over a verse of Marina Tsvetaeva in the original Russian; a translation of 9th century Chinese poet Jia Dao snuggles next to a diminutive revelation, ‘I’m scared of dying, but technically that’s what we’re always doing.’

Buy biodynamic wine. Say perhaps to drugs. We have so much to unlearn here.

Conversations emerge, debates erupt. “tell me about falling in love,” a blue felt tip pen asks.

“It’s awful, but absolutely necessary,” responds a ballpoint in tight, precise cursive. “--> It’s the only way to escape from yourself,” affirms a red Sharpie.

Someone quotes, “If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that’s in it…and which is more you’ll be a Woman my Daughter.” The ‘wo’ is crossed out, and the ‘Daughter’ replaced with Son. “Kipling wasn’t a sexist, so why paraphrase?!?!” writes the indignant editor.

SOUVENIR 51

There’s only one bathroom in the whole place, yet even when I know there’s a line, I can’t help but linger. A poem by Frank O’Hara I haven’t seen before bears a second or third read through. Or an Amen needs to be added to whomever channeled John Updike: “The True New Yorker believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.”

This tiny bathroom with all its voices and verve is where I come when I need to be reminded of the great humanity of my home base, and is the little kernel of New York I carry with me whenever I leave.

But this time, I’m the one waiting outside the door, wishing I had slowed down on the pots of tea. Whoever is inside is taking their own sweet time. I hear the fake shutter sound of a smartphone’s camera, and a muffled exchange between two people. I can only guess what they’re up to in there.

The door opens, and out comes a young french couple. “Did you get it? let me see,” the young woman asks, and her counterpart hands over his phone. She flips through a few pictures and smiles, delighted.

I go inside and lock the door. There, just next to the light switch, in fresh ink, is their contribution: “Je sais à la recherche du bonheur ... et à New York je l’ai trouvé avec toi! RG + Jadou.”

I know of the search for happiness ... and I’ve found it in New York, with you.

Í

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SOUVENIR 53

WORDS + IMAGES

Jen Larsen

DO OR WAY S SOUVENIR 55

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“Doorways,” I told him.

“I collect doorways.”

“Oh?” He looked confused. What sort of a woman was he talking with now? How had this conversation turned so quickly from sharing backpacking tales to pilfering architecture?

We were perched in the bow of a longtail in the Andaman Sea, our hips leaning against the rail, hair whipping wildly around our faces. The sun, white hot and searing for much of the day, had mercifully decided to soften. A stream of molten gold poured from her goblet into the thirsty ocean.

I lifted my camera to capture it. Check exposure, compose, click. Re-compose, click.

Noticing light-flecks splashing in the foreground, I tilted the lens and clicked again.

Once, twice. Happily immersed in the moment, noticing details, painting with light, holding it.

He was watching me. I could feel his gaze land on my cheek, puzzled, amused, ever so slightly scathing.

“Yeah. The world needs another sunset photo,” he said.

“Or ten.” He chuckled derisively as I clicked again, silhouetting a Thai fishing boat against the flaming clouds.

I ignored him. Let him laugh. I was collecting my doorways, and this day was one of the finest I had been through in a while.

SOUVENIR 57

Weeks later, and my family and I are about as far away from that day in the tropics as it is possible to be. High in the snow-capped peaks of South Korea, we ride a gondola.

Dangling hundreds of metres in the air in a glass capsule, the air is filled with the sounds of two things: the roar of the alpine winds, and the click of my camera. Oh and, now and then, my children’s gasps.

“Whoa,” they breathe. “This is AWESOME.” We’ve never seen scenery like it. Below us, trees bristle over mountains like a giant’s threeday growth. Icicles glisten from branches. As far as the eye can see, blankets of cloud snuggle into mountain folds... the world is vast, astonishing. We feel so very small.

I click.

Another doorway.

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SOUVENIR 61

Later, Taiwan. We’re in a cold, bare apartment, on the ninth floor of a grimy grey building on a street of grimy grey buildings. We’ve been on the road almost three months, living out of backpacks, working and learning about the world together. It’s the eve of my daughter’s tenth birthday and we are, for the first time, feeling a palpable wave of homesickness.

I open a doorway for us.

Within minutes we are not in Taiwan, we are back home in Australia with friends, family, pets and toys. Bedrooms are re-inhabited, games reenacted, pets embraced. For an hour we leap from place to place, person to person, our faces alight, the cold forgotten.

Bedtime rolls around and we gently return back to the present, closing doors behind. But we are warmer, fuller, fed by our brief return home, grateful for the rich life we lead, emboldened for another day of adventuring.

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SOUVENIR 63

I am rarely without a camera, especially during these days where we are backpacking around the world as a family. I am going to be honest here and say that I am not an especially good or gifted photographer. I love capturing our days, and I have discovered that having a lens to look through often sharpens my attention to the details of those days, as though they’re burning themselves into my cerebral cortex at the same time as they’re stamping pixels onto impossibly small chips.

But in truth, I don’t take photos simply for the beauty of a scene. Pretty images usually fail to move me unless I know the backstory. A photo without a story is a closed door.

Closed doors can be stunning, but they’re never going to have the same impact as an open one. Like most of us, I take photos for the story behind the moment, for what we were feeling when we were there, for the life and the light.

I take photos because they are magic.

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SOUVENIR 65

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A moment captured on film rips open the intangible, rushing, time-space continuum, holds it, and sets up camp. Now, and for all eternity, there is a doorway, back, to Just. This. Moment.

And so my computer becomes a magic machine, filled to overflowing with supernatural, time-traveling doorways.

And my bookshelves, too, one printed photobook per year plus albums for every single significant trip we’ve taken as a family. Dozens of books filled with thousands of moments: caught, rendered, accessible.

I have lost count of the number of times I have spied one of my children lying on our lounge room floor, surrounded by doorways jammed open, a faraway look in their eyes ... they are not here; they have stepped through a portal and are reliving a moment, a memory. In so doing, they are re-membering, literally making a moment part of themselves again. I am convinced this process strengthens both their sense of self, and their sense of belonging.

SOUVENIR 67

There. I just took a shot of where I sit as I write this.

Did you feel that crack in the ether as I established another foothold in Time?

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Mumbai, India. It’s morning. My husband has just left for work. The hotel mirror is still foggy with steam from his shower. My children are at breakfast — an opulent affair where they are treated like royalty because they are blonde, blue-eyed and cute. Mostly, they hate the attention. I have a slight flu. I order tea to help ease my perpetual coughing and also because I adore the spicy, fragrant chai in this country.

The man who delivers it is taller than most young Indian men, crisp and flawless in his golden skin, white collarless suit and gleaming black loafers. I try to read his name badge to thank him properly but it is a jumble of unfamiliar consonant placements and I can’t figure out how to pronounce it. We both laugh at my attempt.

I am conflicted about being right here in this moment. I feel guilty about being in this safe, clean cocoon of a room in a city with such outrageous extremes of poverty and wealth. I am not entirely peaceful about the fact that I am writing these quiet musings in the bright light of day, when we are here in one of the world’s most teeming cities and there is life to be explored right outside the door, life unfamiliar and exotic, life which, as we become part of it, will enlarge us, give us new eyes.

And, which, if I capture it, will keep doing so for years so come.

So, dear reader, I think that’s my summons.

Life is calling.

My magical time-portal capturer is charged and waiting.

It’s time to go and collect some more doorways.

Í

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collect (v.) col·lect /kə’lekt/ 1 to gather together; assemble 2. accumulate; make a collection of 3. systematically seek and acquire items of a particular kind ORIGIN : 1375-1425; late Middle English < Latin collectus (past

participle of colligere to collect), equivalent to col- + leg- (stem of legere to gather) + -tus past participle suffix.

W O R D S + IM AGE S

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| K i ar a Mu c c i

G R EE C E

Greece holds a special place in my heart; to me is at once both comfortingly familiar and excitingly foreign. My mumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s side of the family is Greek and I am grateful to have grown up with the food, the language, the traditions of this rich culture. Late last year, we visited Kassos, a tiny island next to Crete where my Yayiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family is from. For all its debt and economic trouble, we were touched by the abundant generosity and hospitality of the locals.

When I look at this collection of souvenirs from that trip I am reminded instantly of fresh squid eaten after a swim in the Mediterranean, walking through dry hills with goat bells clinking in the hot air, olive trees (so many olive trees), the smell of incense and basil inside Greek churches and the white light that bounces off the smooth, cool, stone-like houses.

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Istanbul. I walked this city with butterflies in my stomach, with a feeling I can only relate to being in love. I have never had such a visceral response to a place. There is something so alive about this city, this place of paradox: a heady mix of East and West; the timeless ancient and the blaringly modern; the majestic and the decaying; spicy and sweet. A Turkish friend told me that everything (from food, to football) is extreme in Istanbul, and after spending only a small amount of time there I have to wholeheartedly agree. I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait to go back.

S OU T H EAS T A S I A

Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos

My first trip to South East Asia opened my eyes to the richness and colour of cultures so different from my own. I was equal parts overwhelmed and smitten with the buzz of cities like Hanoi and Phnom Penh, and warmed by the faded colonial glory of Luang Prabang and Hoi An. I see in this small collection monks in saffron robes, steaming pho soup gulped while perched on tiny plastic chairs, colourful Buddhist temples and the warmth of the people. South East Asia is where I was well and truly bitten by the â&#x20AC;&#x153;travel bugâ&#x20AC;?, a wanderlust that I am grateful for.

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I N D ON E S I A

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An alcohol-fuelled holiday to Bali is something of a rite of passage for the Aussie traveller, and it is for this exact reason that I had always avoided the place. Thankfully, after a period of feeling lost and restless I impulsively booked a flight there to try out my new English teaching skills and my preconceived notions of this beautiful island were turned on their head in the most wonderful way. There are so many lovely aspects of Balinese culture to be celebrated, but the main thing that stood out for me was the way in which care, beauty and creativity are incorporated into everyday life â&#x20AC;&#x201D; from the delicate, colour-rich religious offerings arranged each day to the impeccable, ornate traditional clothes worn by the equally gorgeous people.

HOM E

Australia, South Coast of New South Wales

As much as I love to travel, at the end of the day I am a homebody.

The joy of travel is so closely intertwined with the joys of homecoming that the two are almost inseparable in my mind. Being lucky enough to live in a very beautiful part of the world, I try to never let familiarity dull my appreciation of it.

One of the great pleasures of travelling is picking up souvenirs to then bring back and assimilate into my home: small tokens of experiences to savour and remember (be they physical objects or simply mental snippets or images) that transport us to times and places where we felt most alive, most joyful and most connected to the greatly shared and varied human experience. My home is filled with such things. It is a place to read a book while having a cup of peppermint tea. A place to wander along the beach finding unusual shells and rocks. A place filled with art and things made by dear friends. And it encompasses the thing I love most about the country I call home â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the celebration and combination of many different cultures.

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Comfort Where You Can Find It WORDS

| Josina R e av e s

“Whaddya

got rocks in here?!”

If you help me with my luggage after a long trip, you, too, might be inspired to ask that often-facetious question, but the answer, in my case, would be “Yes.” Rocks are my souvenirs. Every journey to any natural landscape will inspire me to tuck pebbles into my pockets and stones into my purse. I take pictures of rocks larger than the palm of my hand and leave them where I find them, but I think of them long after I’ve returned home, the way some remember expensive shoes they didn’t buy.

The urge to collect rocks was inspired by geology classes I took in college, but the collection didn’t begin until much later.

2002: Devon Coast, England. A Sunday afternoon in October, and I was ten feet behind the boy I was falling in love with, walking along a glassy beach at low tide.

IMAGES

| An n Wh i ttake r

On that particular day, I was chaperon to a trip with the kayaking club. Actually, the “canoe club” — because that’s what kayaks are called in England, where I was on a Fulbright teaching exchange with a boarding school in Somerset. At that point I had only been kayaking about six weeks, so I wasn’t fit to do any sea kayaking, but I took the trip anyway to see the famed Devon Coast and spend a Sunday on a sunny beach. In anticipation of relaxation in a beauty spot, I had asked my friend to come along.

My friend was young—younger than I by seven years—and not beautiful, but I had begun a slow tumble into love with him that I knew was ill-fated but could not stop. Perhaps it was because he was my only friend at the school where we both taught and in the faculty housing that we shared with nine other teachers. The other faculty were all cordial, solicitous even, but this was the kind of school that chewed teachers up and spit them out. Everyone was either battle-weary, temporary, or new, and since he and I were both temporary—he because of an internship and me because of the Fulbright—we were ignored by the masses and so clung together for warmth in the wet English chill of civility and aloofness.

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Actually, I clung to him, if I’m honest. He was welcomed more warmly than I— invited to play golf, learn cricket, crawl from pub to pub from time to time—but he was kind and understood my loneliness, so he gave me his time, recognizing no one else was thinking of me. In recompense, I invited him to Devon on the one day that seemed like it might break the dreariness of the Fall and offer the gift of a day out.

On the day of the trip, the sun broke through the clouds with vigor, hot and insistent. We grabbed windbreakers and toast and trotted out to the van that pulled up in front of our de-commissioned dorm on the edge of town. Adults pushed in four abreast on the front bench, while students snored softly in tangles in the back. With light at our heels, we trundled forth toward the sea, trailing kayaks like kelp and feeling hopeful and young.

The day was full of promise.

It was raining by the time we arrived.

Because the kids couldn’t canoe until the waves diminished, we bundled into the concession stand at the edge of the parking lot and watched the surf from the upper deck. Despite the heat of the morning, it was clammy and cold by lunch, so we sipped Lipton tea miserably from paper cups and tried not to shiver. The boy and I were woefully underdressed and slumped next to each other on deck chairs telling stories of better beach trips and sunnier climates. The conversation sparked an intimacy between us that I couldn’t help fanning into attraction and affection. Those rare glimpses into his life made my stomach ache with a feeling indistinguishable from hunger. He was a guileless magnet, I a sliver of iron, a bent nail, straining toward a subtle pull, inching forward into a bond.

We chatted like new friends until the wind died and the students were able to don wet suits and carry kayaks two at a time down to the water. The boy and I followed dutifully and watched as they wriggled off the sand into the breakers and out beyond. After a while, we started to wander up and down the sand, still shiny and rippled, watching the heads of the kids as they bobbed or scooted just beyond the foam.

My friend fell into conversation with another chaperone—his mentor in the science department—and pulled ahead as they talked about chemistry and physics and teaching, I think. From behind I watched his back—the curve in his shoulders, the bald spot appearing prematurely at the back of his head, the way the collar of his fleece grazed the backs of his cold-reddened ears, the way his corduroy pants had gotten wet at the cuffs and sandy.

I loved him completely then, and I knew as completely that he would never love me. I was an oddity who left lipstick stains on the coffee cups and sang in the shower too early in the

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morning in the sad old dorm we shared. I had a 401k already and anguished over the plummeting stock market when we looked at the newspapers in the staff room in the mornings. I was staid and slow already, and he was just starting his life, and there was no way for me to fall back to his youth nor for him to spring forward to my maturity.

Around us, green lushness draped over rocky hills like rind on fruit that’s been split, not cut. The arc of the beach was wide and generous, arms flung open in embrace. The sky was heavy with clouds, thin in spaces where the sun was starting to burn through again like a light bulb under paper. My friend walked on, and I fell farther behind and contemplated my feet, watching them sink into the beach, pushing a cuff of sand up and over my toes, then pulling at my heel as I lifted it free from the earth. It was in that meditation that I came upon the first rock—basalt with a vein of quartz running through it. I lifted it from the ground with much the same difficulty as my legs had lifted my feet and brought the stone to my chest. It was the size of my whole hand, deep gray, coarsely smooth on the top, damp and sandy underneath. But it was warm.

The warmth was what surprised me. Somehow, in the sun of the morning, it had absorbed enough heat to radiate that back to me hours later. There, on that smooth beach, this single large rock, from no where I could discern, had rested and baked, and I had found it, improbably, and captured its last radiation of the sun.

“Look at this!” I called out, but the boy was too far ahead and kept moving away from me.

Instead, I cradled and stroked my prize and drew from it what warmth I could. Í

SOUVENIR 79

a field to lie in Katharine Anderson

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O

nce there was a time when I was on a literary pilgrimage through Great Britain; exhilarating and conflicting and frustrating and liberating all at once, over and over and over again. It was a time of longing and yearning, and sublime trekking through the driving rain, and triumphant crows of laughter, and silent lonely sobs at night. Even from a distance of years and experience and a mind sobering into mature adulthood, there is no way to recall the events of the trip through a natural, realistic lens. It is all shot through with an iridescent thread enhancing every moment in my memory so that it cannot be described in rational terms, only hyperbole will suffice.

In the midst of the soaring highs and crashing lows of the journey, there came a quiet hour when I lay in the grass on the Isle of Wight, on the grounds surrounding Osborne House, — one of Victoria’s old residences — and wrote in my journal: If life is a string of pearls made up of moments like this then maybe I can stop worrying about the future and making plans, because maybe instead there will always be a warm soft field to lie in and the Sun will always manage to warm you through the clouds, and all noises will be dampened by the grass til all you can hear are subtle rustlings and snatches of insect buzzing and the far cry of birds. And there will always be a delicate breeze to cool you and the quiet presence of friends round about, so being alone will be a choice rather than a fact, and you won’t mind the clanging of bells at noon or the distant roar of an airplane overhead, because Time doesn’t really need to exist here among the dandelions and springs of Queen Anne’s Lace. This moment is perfect. Strength and contentment. I want to live like this all the days of my life.

Bess comes and sits and puts sprigs of flowers in her hair. And I say This field is perfect and They look perfect and she snorts and says Yes, perfection is the point, because she is nothing if not sly and wry and snarky. So I smile a half smile but my brain quietly thinks, No, not that, not bland, boring, smooth-edged perfect—it is perfect in the Moment. This moment in the grass requires those flowers to be perched just so, just as they are. All is fulfilled, nothing wanting. And I’m glad to be here and alive and I’m glad that language exists and I’m glad for what I am and what life is meant to be and that now I know it.

I returned home from the trip several weeks later, and set to work living and writing and existing like a regular person. I say ‘set to work’ as if I was capable of just sitting down at a tidy desk somewhere and placidly typing away, all my ideas and thoughts carefully slotted into alphabetical files and neatly paperclipped and sent away for approval. In truth it was not so. I writhed.

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I stumbled. I shied away from eager, willing helpers like a wounded animal. I flinched at the things you are supposed to stare down unflinchingly—personal relationships, plans for the future, my shrinking opinion of my own abilities and utility as a living human. I had deadlines and meetings and a Future As an Adult I needed to figure out, and the fear and anxiety crowded around me like thick dark fog and I had barely a matchstick’s worth of hope or energy to dissipate it. I was sinking into this roiling morass of self-pity and loathsomeness, and there was no escape.

And it was all made worse by the feeling that I had so recently, so easily, so merrily gone abroad and discovered true meaning, true living, and the true manner of happiness, and now the horrid specter of Real Life had come to take it away, never to be captured or experienced again.

Sometimes things are so obvious, but still we forget. I suppose there’s no way around it; it is our nature to find and clarify truths and then tuck them safely away in words and books, and to refer to them so often ever after by bits and pieces and code words that we forget what they were and what they meant.

Even in the near absolute darkness of my closet where I would huddle under a shroud of hanging clothes on a bed of lumpy mismatched shoes, I remembered what I had written those long months before. I remembered the grass and the breeze and the flowers, the murmur of friendly voices and the gentle sunlight. But I forgot what it had all added up to. I remembered the symbols, but lost track of what they signified. It was a nice picture of a happy time that was gone forever and only made the present seem worse.

The sudden clarity recaptured was such a relief after the chaos and confusion, like rain in the desert, like a light switch flipping on, like every cliché that has ever been used into meaninglessness. The strange thing is, I can’t remember what spurred my recollection. I don’t know what the stimulus was that reconnected my surface memories with their deeper, subconscious meanings. All I know is that one night, late, long after I had turned out the main light, I was still sitting at my computer, bleary eyed, straining and struggling in battle with an essay. Like so many pieces before it, like my future, like my life, like my hopes and dreams and wishes, it was going nowhere. So I thought to myself, Forget this, and I closed the document with a harsh scrape of my mouse, and I rummaged through my travel journal to make myself feel nostalgic and sad and justified. And I came upon my little snippet from that day at Osborne House, and I read it and stared at it and read it again, and everything in my mind was wiped clean and recalibrated and started over afresh. And I opened my new journal-- my sad, abused, tortured journal full of wails and rants of anxiety and depression, and I wrote something new: I knew it at Osborne House. I lay in the soft quiet grass and suddenly I knew. Life before then had seemed cloudy and grey and dead and bleak—I needed to make plans, I needed to know things, but I didn’t know anything and it was all misty curtains around my brain and fear and despair. But then I lay there. A perfect moment like a gift, like an Almighty Creator reaching down so tenderly, quietly, and telling without telling me that everything is exactly arranged just so, that there is a time and a season and a contingency plan. I lay there in the grass and I finally saw that life is a string of pearls made up of moments in time, and that there is always grass

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and shared solitude and a field to lie in. There will always be a field to lie in –that peace and refuge always exist, and no matter what darkness exists we can elect to go there. Just slide down the string to the pearl that reflects blue and green and soft yellow sunlight.

Everything has been a muddle. A confusion, a stupor. Inexplicable, unpredictable, a horrid mess of perceived failure and unwithstandable pressure and expectation. No matter what I did, how often I thought and spoke and cried or sat and tried to type myself out of it, it was always there—desperation, impossibilities.

Finally tonight, I remembered. I lay in bed in the dark, and suddenly I remember. I remember that we are free. I remember what the string of pearls means. That life is a string of moments; it’s not all made of the same thing. Soft subtle gleams, moments which can be anything I want them to be. Everything can be gold and eternal. I remember finally now that there is no eternal doom, no unsolvable plight. Because there will always be a field to lie in—I need only find it, and choose to go. And then once again the peace can be found, the circle re-centered. There is always a place and a time and a perfection, because it’s all just moments.

And there need be no more swirling clouds, no blackness, no more confusion. It evaporates, becomes the rain that drenches the grass, that feeds the dandelions, that makes the ocean roil that exact shade of blue green.

This moment is complete. And it doesn’t matter if you or I don’t know what exactly to say or do, because I expect we’ll all manage just fine. …

The cycle continues on and on. I plunge headlong into shuddering waves of bleakness and despair, and I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to call a halt, blow the whistle and quietly extract myself from this horrid exercise of living. Oblivion, absence, a quiet, silky nothingness— sometimes my brain is convinced and so adept at persuading me that these are the real answer.

But I have taught myself now. I know how to remember my string of pearls, and my hour in the grass. I remember and remember and remember, over and over again. And I resurface. I come up gasping, and I look around for a patch of grass, somewhere just off the path. And the flowers and the murmuring voices and the slant of sunlight are just so, and again I find the moment, and I am remade complete. Í

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Miniature sabots, in imitation of traditional wooden clogs from the Breton region.

47° 59’ 51.1512’ N 4° 5’ 52.4364’’ W

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