Lists!

Posted by S. , Sunday, April 3, 2011 6:34 PM

I recently stumbled across Listography, a website dedicated to making lists. Which, for those of you that are like me and love list making, is a great way to spend time on a rainy day. (I long for a pad of the yellow and orange list-making paper we used at IBM. "Don't try to remember it, write it down". Maybe I'll beg my dad to procur some for me).

And I came across the list topic: Things that I define me. For me, personally, I'm defined by experiences, and places. Living in the place and context I have been for the past 7+ months, I realize how defined I am by place, by my environment. When, considering my first BA, makes perfect sense. I didn't just study Environment and Geography, I'm a firm believer in it.

Place, of course, defines how we see the world. It impacts who were are, changes us. We, in turn, destroy the environment. How's that for symbiosis? But, that's not my point (I'll talk environmental degradation later, to anyone willing to put up with it. Vote Green?)

I've been voraciously consuming travel lit this winter. Partially for something to do, partially for reassurance that I'm not crazy at times, partially for the comfort that others have felt this way before me, partially to gleam some wisdom on a lot of this. Partially because I have quasi-grandiose plans to go Kerouac on the Greyhound system this summer.

And, I'm starting to understand something: when you're in a new place, a new culture, especially when cut off from the "outside" world in so many ways such as I am; place impacts you in the sense that it completely turns you upside down and inside out. To quote Susan Gilman in Undress me in the Temple of Heaven, it makes you forget a lot of who you are. React like a helpless baby (mostly inwardly), because, in many essences, in travel such as this, you're helpless at times. Frustrated. She also touched on the idea of imagining emotions, exaggerating connections, to counter the lonelieness. So, I'm not crazy. That's a relief.

I'm craving mountains, leafy trees, grass, drive thrus, driving my car, movement, and the rest of the amenities the outside world features like mad.