Living in the transit lounge

What to say about an ocean that hasn't been said? I've previously written a poem about the Pacific Ocean, in response to another Sunday Scribblings prompt. I've spent many an hour walking along the beach or sitting on rocks in Pacific Grove, California, watching the waves crash around my feet.

I've enjoyed a romantic first-throes-of-a-love-affair evening in Gualala, with a private beach and beauty as far as the eye can see. I've taken many long walks along Ocean Beach in San Francisco. And I've walked along clifftops in Mendocino contemplating the Pacific Ocean and its hypnotic pull. The ocean calms me, even at times of great stress.

But the Atlantic Ocean has less happy connotations for me, as it must be traversed going back and forth between the United States and Europe. I hate these long flights over the Atlantic; in my mind the Atlantic is always a hurdle that must be crossed. Yes, I agree it's beautiful, but I don't get to enjoy it.

Crossing oceans has become an ordinary event for many of us, who go back and forth from one part of the world to another. From Pico Iyer's essay "Living in the Transit Lounge" in Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global:

"By the time I was nine, I was already used to going to school by trans-Atlantic plane, to sleeping in airports, to shuttling back and forth, three times a year, between my parents' (Indian) home in California and my boarding school in England. Throughout the time I was growing up, I was never within 6,000 miles of the nearest relative - and came, therefore, to learn how to define relations in non-familial ways.

"From the time I was a teenager, I took it for granted that I could take my budget vacations...in Bolivia and Tibet, China and Morocco. It never seemed strange to me that a grilfriend might be half a world (or ten hours' flying time) away, that my closest friends might be on the other side of a continent or sea.

"It was only recently that I realized that all these habits of mind and life would scarcely have been imaginable in my parents' youth; that the very facts and facilities that shape my world are all distinctly new developments...

"It was only recently, in fact, that I realized that I am an example, perhaps, of an entirely new breed of people, a transcontinental tribe of wanderers..." "We are the Transit Loungers, forever heading to the Departure Gate, forever orbiting the world. We buy our interests duty-free, we eat our food on plastic plates, we listen to the world through borrowed headphones. We pass through countries as through revolving doors, resident aliens of the world, impermanent residents of nowhere. Nothing is strange to us and nowhere is foreign...

"This is not, I think, a function of affluence so much as simple circumstance. I am not, that is, a jet-setter pursuing vacations from Marbella to Phuket; I am simply a fairly typical product of a movable sensibility, living and working in a world that is itself becoming increasingly small and increasingly mongrel. I am a multinational soul on a multicultural globe where more and more countries are as polyglot and restless as airports. Taking planes seems as natural to me as picking up the phone or going to school; I fold up my self and carry it round with me as if it were an overnight case.

"The modern world seems increasingly made for people like me. I can plop myself down anywhere and find myself in the same relation of familiarity and strangeness: Lusaka, after all, is scarcely more strange to me than the foreigners' England in which I was born, the America where I am registered as an "alien" and the almost unvisited India that people tell me is my home. I can fly from London to San Francisco to Osaka and feel myself no more a foreigner in one place than another: all of them are just locations - pavilions in some intercontinental Expo - and I can work or live or love in any of them. All have Holiday Inns, direct-dial phones, CNN and DHL. All have sushi and Thai restaurants, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Coke. My office is as close as the nearest fax machine or modem...

"This kind of life offers an unprecedented sense of freedom and mobility: tied down to nowhere, I can pick and choose among locations. Mine is the first generation that can go off to visit the Himalayas for a week or sample life in the distant countries we have always dreamed about; ours is the first generation to be able to go to Kenya for a holiday to find our roots - or to find they are not there. At the lowest level, this new internationalism also means that I can get on a plane in los Angeles, get off a few hours later in Jakarta and check into a Hilton, order a cheeseburger in English and pay for it all with an American Express card. At the next level, it means that I can meet, in the Hilton coffee shop, an Indonesian businessman who is as conversant as I am with Michael Kinsley and Magic Johnson and Madonna. At a deeper level, it means that I need never feel estranged. If all the world is alien to us, all the world is home.

"I have learned, in fact, to love foreignness. In any place I visit, I have the privileges of an outsider: I am an object of interest and even fascination; I am a person set apart, able to enjoy the benefits of the place without paying the taxes. And the places themselves seem glamourous to me - romantic - as seen through foreign eyes: distance on both sides lends enchantment...Perpetual foreigners in the transit lounge, we enjoy a kind of diplomatic immunity; and, living off room service in our hotel rooms, we are never obliged to grow up, or even, really, to be ourselves.

"We learn too the lesser skills of cosmopolitan life. We become relativists, sensitively aware that what goes down in Casablanca will not go down well in Cairo. We become analysts, able to see every place through an outsider's eyes and even our own homes become foreign spectacles. We become professional correspondents, adept at keeping up friendships through the mail, our affinities and sympathies scattered across all borders.

"We learn, indeed, to exult in the blessings of belonging to what feels like a whole new race. It is a race, as Salman Rushdie says, "of people who root themselves in ideas, rather than places, in memories as much as in material things; people who have been obliged to define themselves - because they are so defined by others - by their otherness; people in whose deepest selves strange fushions occur, unprecedented unions between what they were and where they find themselves."

"We learn to enjoy the fruits of international co-productions - Bertolucci movies, Peter Brook plays, Derek Walcott poems. All of us are international coproductions these days, global villages on two legs. All of us flaunt the United Colors of Benetton, with our English shoes, Japanese watches and American terms. And when people argue that our very notion of wonder is eroded, that alienness itself is as seriously endangered as the wilderness, that more and more of the world is turning into a single synthetic monoculture, I am not worried: a Japanese version of a French fashion is something new, I say, not quite Japanese and not truly French. Comme des Garcons hybrids are the art form of the time.

"...How does one fix a moving object on a map? I am not an exile, really, nor an immigrant; not deracinated, I think, any more than I am rooted. I have not fled the oppression of war, nor found ostracism in the places where I do alight; I scarcely feel severed from a home I have scarcely known. Is "citizen of the world" enough to comfort me? And does "feeling at home anywhere" make it easier to sleep at night?"

Top photograph, Asilomar Beach, Pacific Grove, California; second photo, rocks at Pacific Grove and last photo, the colourful ice plant in Pacific Grove.

Comments

[Deb G]

I'm personally fond of where the ocean hits the Mendocino coast-but I might be biased as that's where a lot of my "roots" are.... Guess it is a small world. I really did like your post and the passage you quoted. Although travel makes us socially and culturally more aware, I do worry about the impact that travel has on the environment. It's a balancing game I suppose.

[awareness]

let us all strive to have multinational souls. What a big difference it would make in the understanding and approach with take with one another.

interesting insights here, Tara.

[gautami]

Awesome photos!

[KG]

The global village, yes! And only getting smaller, if possible.

Fantastic photos! It's amazing how different West Coast, U.S. ocean feel from the East Coast one.

I really like your new header, too.

[giggles]

Beautiful perspective of a life well adapted. I wonder if you’d experienced a more rooted childhood whether you’d feel the same. Would your spirit be as adventurous? Very interesting enjoyable post Tara! Although I felt sad for the young Tara, it obviously contributed to your amazing outlook!

Hugs Sherrie

Tara responds:

Thanks Sherrie, but it wasn't me who experienced the uprooted childhood, but Pico Iyer. I grew up in a small town in the South; doesn't come much more rooted than that. My daughter, however, experienced an "uprooted childhood"- not quite as extreme as Iyer's, but she moved very often, because of my work and lived on three continents.

[sundaycynce]

What an excellent explanation of the new "unrooted" denizens of our global community: "the new breed of people...transcontinental wanderers." I enjoyed reading about them, it was very interesting, very educational. But I could never be one of those. I love to travel!! But I need to be rooted. I need to have a "home base." As I tried to express in my post about oceans, the ocean for me is very grounding; and when need be, can serve as a temporary home base or as a home "fix," as it were, until the real thing can be regained.
Loved your photos, expecially the one with pink sand.

[Frances]

Four big golden stars for the post, pictures and new header.
Especially loved the part about embracing and loving "foreigness."
Look forward to what you come up with next Sunday.
Frances

[Regina Clare Jane]

Wow- that was some post! Great reading here... and I love your new header, Tara!

[Tammy]

I enjoyed the read Tara. I take for granted my ocean and I think I need a visit. XXOO

Nice header!

[Mardougrrl]

I really enjoy Pico Iyer's writings on place...he captures that sense of expectant emptiness that categorizes the immigrant experience so well, I think.

Thanks for sharing, as always (and I am looking forward to your post on the French election results).

[Kamsin]

I totally love that Salman Rushdie quote. And I can relate to the sentiment of your post. You express so well what it is to be a global citizen both belonging everywhere and nowhere.

[Colette]

It's my story too. I was the one who was "changing planes before I was out of diapers." I like the term "transit lounger" better. And I think it's because of a lifetime of transit lounges, visiting relatives and long-distance relationships, which all seemed normal to me, that I now don't want to travel much.

I never liked the Atlantic though, I always thought it cold. Not stark, just cold. Except for the Atlantic side of Barbados, whose starkness I find poetic and quite beautiful.

[meredith]

I agree in that while I love to experience new cultures and people, the flying across the ocean part is not my favorite thing. A mind numbing experience if you ask me....

[MyMelange]

Tara,

Another new heading for your blog...I can't keep up with you..it looks good! I too lived for sometime near San Fran and was lucky enough to visit the coastline there many times. Mendicino and south down to Monteray were my favorites. There is a special energy there. But I also was moved to tears when I visited Yosemite and the Grand Canyon for the first time. I think I am constantly amazed at what nature can do. I always feel free, yet connected when I visit places like that.

[Crafty Green Poet]

Interesting post, we're definitely becoming more international in outlook and tastes, whether this will be able to continue when and if the oil runs out, remains to be seen. Love the photos, I visited Pacific Grove when I was a child on holiday with my parents.

[Marilyn]

I've just caught up on 3 weeks of your posts...34 of them! You're so prolific! (I've been anything but, since I've been overwhelemed at work.) Some great stuff, as usual. I had to smile when I read "Gualala" here...haven't been there in decades. Thanks for the "Tell Us the Mission" link...powerful. Love the new banner! ;)

[rel]

Tara,
Interesting excerpt. I agree with it's message: the world has shrunk and we've become more of a global village. I disagree that we are the first generation to do so. The difference for sure is in the numbers, that said, the majority of "Americans" got here by crossing the sea/ocean long before this generation. I'm afraid to fly and fear drowning, yet I've lived in 2/3 of the world and will touch down on the remaining third in the next few years. Like you, the ocean brings a sense of peaceful tranquility to me. I find it calls my name often.
Excellant post.
rel

[Nutster]

There is so much in that essay. If you were judgemental, you would say, "what a shame for the child to be so far from relatives." When you realize family is not about bloodlines but more about choice, you see the wonderful advantage this person had with their change of view.

As for you, T, is it the Pacific Ocean or the Northern California coast that holds it's specialness for you? The Nor Cal coast is my favorite. It has a starkness...a sense of survivorship about it. It is like a fortress where the sea struggles against land in a stalemate. This is opposed to the comfortable beaches of the So Cal coast that are lazy and care more about aesthetics...which also reflect in the differences of the people.

Loved the post

Tara responds:

Thanks Scott. You're right, the rugged coastline of Northern California definitely has a lot to do with the appeal - particularly around Mendocino and Sea Ranch and further south around Big Sur - just breathtakingly beautiful; nature at its most remarkable.