Tag: Europe

Eclecticism

I once had one particularly resonant life truth pinned up on my bulletin board among many other nuggets scribbled on bits of paper that spoke to me.

“Eclecticism is self-defeating not because there is only one direction in which it is useful to move, but because there are so many: it is necessary to choose.“

It was more a visceral understanding of that truism than an actual “knowing” that spoke to me. No question I was interested in a great many things as a young woman.

Life dictates you cannot possibly pursue all interests that pop up. Not if you want to achieve any depth of success in any chosen field.

In that respect, journalism was a reasonable path to follow. I got to ask lots of questions about lots of things from lots of strangers. And then I could actually publish or broadcast what I learned. I also got into a lot of high priced conferences by flashing my press credentials.

I worried a lot when I was young about the trap of commitment that making choices and becoming successful requires.

What lay under that fear was constantly questioning whether I was good enough to do anything. I understand that is quite common among human beings. Moreso among women I understand.

I can’t imagine why. (That’s sarcasm right there in case I needed to explain…. Girls do that.)

In the upcoming generation, I feel increasing societal pushback against the extreme standards and expectations that are put on women. There used to be a chart that circulated about how women’s leadership skills compared to how men’s skills were characterized.

He was assertive. She was bossy. He was determined. She was pushy. And so on.

It has always been a devil’s bargain. No matter how well women do, it seems, someone is always ready to “qualify” their success. It took me a long time to understand that.

So I bounced around a lot in my so-called career. Had a lot of jobs. Did some of them more or less well.

I actually enjoy being eclectic. It beats the heck out of being docile and predictable. At least that is what I told myself. Often.

Looking back, I see the truth that eclecticism was self-defeating in respects. But I also dodged a lot of bullets.

I watched senior, single academic women nursing Manhattans in bars after classes were done. I watched another former peer striding proudly as the flag bearer at the front of the annual academic procession during encaenias.

I have watched peers and colleagues zig when maybe they should have zagged at certain junctures in their lives. I know I did a few times.

All the intensity and love they poured into their careers and the strangers that once perpetually peopled their days have now disappeared. They are left with themselves and what is left from that life to comfort them in their dotage.

That seems like a very poor bargain to strike in life to me. Maybe I am speaking from a place of security and safety I had never previously known. Maybe I am a jerk and the truth is I couldn’t keep a job to save my life so naturally, I kept moving forward and moving around.

But I look back on some of those eclectic experiences with satisfaction and huge measure of gratitude for having done some of the things I did.

Trips to the Arctic, Argentina, across the Andes, all over Europe and parts of Asia. High up into the Himalayas. I saw some things that won’t leave until I do.

Young people now seem to prefer collecting experiences over “things” as our parents and grandparents might have. Vast amounts of material possessions are fated for the garbage dump when boomers start kicking off in droves.

I am of the Boomer generation and feel blessed to have adopted a life strategy of accumulating experiences over everything else well before my time.

I am not promoting eclecticism as an optimum life choice. I get and have experienced that spreading your interests too thin can backfire on you.

But I will argue I really didn’t feel I had much other choice. In my bouncing from thing to thing and author to author and one philosophy over another, I finally landed in a place where I feel myself settled and grounded.

For today anyway. It is both the curse and certainty of having an eclectic bent of mind that nothing is ever settled “finally and forever.” Not until death, perhaps, and lately I’ve been questioning if seeking will end even then.

I guess one day I’ll find out. For now, I’m going to scan my eclectic collection selection of saved recipes and see what dish I can concoct that I’ve never made before to see how it works out.

Seems like how I have greeted every day and experience since I’ve been on the planet. Why quit now.

Come Fly With Me

Today’s writing prompt: What is something you would attempt, if you were guaranteed not to fail?

What wouldn’t I attempt? Without question, the biggest challenge I would tackle would be to become a pilot. The urge to travel and fly was in me from an early age.

At 17, I applied to be an airline stewardess with a small regional airline in the Eastern part of Canada. The rejection letter was partly disappointing and partly heartening. I was too young to be hired they told me. But they encouraged me to apply again when I turned 19.

As fate would have it, by the time I was 19, I had been accepted at university. That sealed my fate for the following four years and many years that followed. Still, I worked in a good deal of flying in those university years.

I travelled twice to Europe twice between academic semesters. At the end of third year, I spent a summer in Egypt on a student seminar with about 50 other Canadians.

Following graduation, I travelled to Asia and throughout Sri Lanka, India and Nepal. You may have read of my trek through the Himalayas .

My husband was a commercial airline pilot. The irony and suitability of our union has not been lost on me. While I was schlepping from country to country on this airline or another as a passenger, he was actually flying the planes. Our paths never crossed in those days but we laugh at the possibility that they certainly might have.

My husband was a pioneer in the age of commercial flight. He flew for Pan American World Airways for 20 years until its’ untimely demise in 1991. The death of that iconic airline marked a sea change in the history of aviation.

Pan Am set the bar for class, luxury and service. I marveled that prime rib roast was not only served at seat side in Pan Am’s first class section, but had been roasted in the airline galley. Passengers got to choose their preferred cut. The wine selection rivaled a 5-star Michelin restaurant. Caviar was a standard “appetizer.”

My husband tells stories of the many glamorous passengers he ferried back and forth across the oceans. Elizabeth Taylor. Maggie Smith (who hated to fly). Flip Wilson (funny as hell.) Duke Ellington (wore a dewrag.) Burt Lancaster (shorter than he looked onscreen).

In one poignant story about a stewardess he tells how excited she was to serve Rock Hudson in first class. But her heart quietly broke after sharing her excitement with her galley colleagues. It was only then she learned Hudson’s male travel companion was also his boyfriend.

I had heard of Pan Am off in the distance. Ephemerally. I never flew on it. As a Canadian, we had other choices for European and international travel. It is my loss. The Pan Am logo on the side of a 747 was an iconic symbol in countless movies and TV shows. My husband refers to the cockpit of a 747 as his “office.”

Pan Am stories still drift through the world and are recounted by many people we meet – whether travelers or employees, always recounted with a certain wistfulness and joy. Pan Am employees seemed to universally love working at Pan Am.

My husband’s stories are full of glamor and fun they had both on the aircraft and during layovers. Pan Am employees believed – it is said – that “the world is my oyster.” When Pan Am declared bankruptcy in 1991, and went out of business, some employees committed suicide.

There are still Pan Am clubs in many places where there are still enough ex-employees to justify them. There is a Pan Am museum in Florida. You can still buy Pan Am “merch” and memorabilia online.

Today there are many female commercial airline pilots. Had I been born later, I might have been one of them. My husband and I often talk about the unlikelihood of our meeting in the first place. It was on an online dating site, not a normal domain for either of us. I was in Canada. He was in the US.

Along with the mysteries of falling in love, we talked with familiarity about restaurants and sites we saw in Buenos Aires, New Delhi, Rome, Paris, Munich and many other international capitals. In one conversation, he finally gave up asking me which countries I had visited: “This might go faster if you just tell me which countries you haven’t visited.” It still makes us chuckle.

No chance of failure? I’d be in a flight simulator somewhere in a New York minute. I’d abandon a lot of other dreams to pursue the goal of becoming a pilot.

And who knows? I ain’t dead yet. The game isn’t over until the fat lady sings. Of course, that phrase means one should not presume to know the outcome of an event which is still in progress.

Which is – in this case – my life.

So we’ll see.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I’d like to say all my bags are packed and I’m ready to go. I’m not. That is what I will do today.

I used to love travel. I remember the excitement in getting ready for a big trip. And there were some very big trips in my life.

From my home base in Canada, I flew to Sri Lanka for a three month walking trek and sojourn through India and Nepal. On another occasion, I flew to Seoul Korea to connect with my family on tiny and dazzling beautiful black sand Jeju Island off South Korea’s coast.

Then there was the southern sojourn to Argentina to take a ten day horse trek across the Andes. And I once flew due North and landed in Iqaluit, Nunavut for several frost filled days to attend the Arctic Winter Games.

Many writers laud the benefits of travel. I do. It changes you. It broadens your perspective on so many things. It can shatter the illusion of cultural superiority that some secretly harbor if they have not travelled very far from their home base.

One look at a carved monument in almost any country should knock that out of your system pretty quickly. Not always, of course. But often.

Travel is a kind of education that you cannot replicate by reading books. Books stimulate the imagination. Travel stimulates the senses. Nothing could replace the overwhelming sights and sounds of a spice market in New Delhi, India.

Celebrating Holi, the festival of colors, is one of the most unique occasions I’ve ever taken part in. In under an hour, me and my traveling companions were physically drenched in a dozen colors from handfuls of special chalk thrown at us. Deliberately!

As you wander the streets of New Delhi (or anywhere in India on that unique, special holiday), everyone is equally streaked with multiple colors of dust.

Indians generally have a great sense of occasion. Nothing can match the style and splendor of an Indian wedding drenched in rich fabrics, brilliant colors and enticing smells.

When most of my college buddies were working at traditional summer jobs after the term was over, I spent every summer traveling on some pretense or another. Europe. First as a waitress in a massive tourist hotel and the following summer as a student. Then Egypt as a student after my third year.

After graduation, I spent several months traipsing through Asia. So many indelible memories. So much experience and learning – mostly good.

I am leaving my country again. This time, on a more permanent basis. We cannot predict the future with flawless accuracy but we can make some educated guesses.

For me that means the next few years will be spent among my continent mates directly to our South. Living in the USA at this juncture in history is an ongoing daily education. I won’t make a qualitative call on what I’m learning there.

Travel brings you home with new eyes. You see everything that was familiar and there before but differently somehow.

It is easy for me to appreciate the old song, “How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Pa-ree?” Travel was like an addiction where the more I did it, the more I craved. I deemed it a healthy addiction and only now see the cravings diminishing somewhat.

Hours from now, I’ll be winging my way South to rejoin my husband and put this country in the rearview mirror for awhile.

When the jet place departs, I fully expect my bags to be packed and ready to go.

As ready as I’ll ever be at any rate.