Around the World Before? Not? (ALBUQUERQUE)
KING TUT’S PUPPY DOG. 1989.
In 1989, in a bit of a huff over what I perceived as betrayal and shortsightedness on behalf of the City of Albuquerque, I quit my nice job, withdrew my 10-years worth of retirement pay and set off to explore. Perhaps, you say, this was not a wise financial move. Who’s to judge? I can still retire when I’m 81 and having to get up and go to work gives me something to look forward to….
I managed to stay out of the country for three months that time, traveling to several European cities and countries—starting in Paris; winding up (I think) in Cairo. In between, there were Douala, Kinshasa and Manila and maybe some places else.
I met up with arts colleagues in Europe and Kinshasa and family in Manila. Otherwise I was just rambling about on my own. I got my visa for Cameroon at The Hague (regarded with great suspicion by immigration officials when I landed at a dark and deserted airport in Douala quite late at night). I tried to get a visa for Vietnam while stranded in Manila for a couple of weeks but it was too soon. Americans were not being admitted with wounds still festering and my status as a student anti-war marcher didn’t play anywhere in that scenario. I still haven’t been to Vietnam…maybe next year.
I think that scenario gives me bragging rights as someone who has at least attempted to be a bona fide world traveler—if not yet quite reaching that elevated status for which I so long.
That 1989 Big Trip will be a chapter or more in Window Seat, at which time the burning question of whether I’ve already been around the world will be answered, but that’s in the future—I’ve only written through 1963 and the first Philippines trip so far. The puzzle for this post is have I been around the world before. In 1989 did I fly to Europe from the U.S. and fly out of Asia to return? If I headed home out of Cairo, which I think is the case, then probably not, I would have returned across the Atlantic. But in the back of my mind I’m wondering if Cairo came before Manila and I flew back over the Pacific? In which case this year will be my second jaunt all the way around.
I have, tucked about my main writing desk, notebooks and a few stories and the miscellaneous flotsam of a time when all itineraries and tickets and receipts were paper things. So with not too much digging I will find the answer to my question. But for now I don’t want to know. I like both ideas.
In three weeks I am embarking on my first trip around the world.
In three weeks I am embarking on my second trip around the world.
The truth of either is magical to me.
CAIRO ’89
MOBUTU’S KINSHASA 1989. NICE IF YOU’RE WHITE. NOT SO MUCH OTHERWISE. UNLESS OF COURSE YOU ARE MOBUTU.
such adventures. Cairo in 1989 might have been a much better place than it is now, but I guess that depends on which way the political winds were blowing at the time. I remember quitting my job a couple of times…what a satisfying feeling that is…but it is not satisfying when you realize the company you no longer work for can get along without you just fine. Why aren’t they falling apart without me? Lessons learned when young.
interesting comments Marj…yes with time, sequences and years will blurb in one’s mind when one travels so much however I would think that the trips which one takes with people or when meet people, may stay more vivid in one’s mind: my first trip was to Algeria in the mid seventies when my sister and I visited my cousin and the current one is to Barcelona for the IPAM Arts meeting and where I reconnected with Agnes Blot …..In between, numerous trips to so many places around the world for work (including as a flight attendant on long haul flights for Air France with many crews before all the ones for dance and music, a few with you in Africa), fun and with Vernon around his January 1st birthday! A few left to visit but the ones where one takes or connects with people, are the ones that I will remember most fondly: “The world is a place I bought a ticket to”, said Gary Winogrand with and through his photography!
Excellent article. I definitely love this website.
Keep it up!
Thank you. It’s about to become more interesting as I leave for this big jaunt around the the world. At least I intend for it to. Don’t suppose I’ll see any whales in the Baltic Sea or between China and Korea but who knows.