arrivals and departures

I've been thinking about new places I've been to and found out I’ve never been to a whole lot. Sure, I spent summer breaks in the province when I was a kid just like everybody else, run away from home twice, ended up living in shabby hotels for a week, and even went to a couple of these touristy places that I could hardly afford.

Nothing extraordinary, though. No Facebook status updates like "Bali was great. This ancient guy told my fortune and said my business empire will fall in a few years.” Or “Boracay was awesome until I discovered a diaper floating in the water.”

But there is an implied premise here, that in this age of rapid globalization, crossing geographical boundaries has been made a ready and viable option—for leisure, for business, or to look for a job. For those who have money (Gloria Arroyo and Ramona Revilla), or who are desperate enough (the unemployed and the underpaid), the border that separates home from the rest of the world has become a very thin line.

There is a brilliant short story** by Salman Rushdie that furthers this train of thought: “‘Home’ has become a scattered, damaged, various concept in our present travails. There is so much to yearn for.” The speaker and main character refers to how Dorothy’s legendary magical footwear can possibly transport anyone home if “home” has become such a vague word that can stand for almost anything.

I wonder how Apple's Siri would respond to that. I mean, when you ask her how you could get “home”—probably something witty and entirely useless.

As for me, this blog would be something where I can keep track of certain “arrivals” and “departures,” to remind me of three things:

• That places aren't the only things we can leave and/or return to.
• That I must not lose sight of the people I must always return to, no matter what; and
• That, alternatively, I must not forget the things that I must always have with me wherever I go--an ample supply of reasonable optimism and humorous self-deprecation, among many other things.

It's a cheesy, flimsy, funny idea. But it works for me.


* Image is from the movie Garden State (2004)
** At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers, from the collection East, West (1995)