Travel doesn’t force perspective, but it affords the opportunity to enlarge it. The initiating point for me is in the airport. Walking in, bags in hand, passport and tickets at the ready, of course we all retain a wish everything will go smoothly. But if I approach the experience with an attitude that leans toward “this is where the adventure begins” it both softens and brightens everything. I’d put the light goal in my mind that on this trip I’d get more in touch with my intuitive sense, often a compass in my life that I’d recently realized had not been given much attention.
In a way, I might say my departure was uneventful. Yet the richness that is life is not entirely made of physical excitement in the moment. I was in line waiting to board the first 8-hour leg of my trip, a flight to the airport in Paris, when a bright, composed-looking lady in front of me smiled and asked if I’d hold her place for a moment. “Sure.” She stepped out and put on the long compression socks I’d remembered to put on earlier in the morning. “Already got mine on this time,” I said. “It’s just so hard once you’re in those tight seats surrounded by other passengers” she replied.
We struck up a conversation, discovering we both were headed to Nairobi on the connecting flight. She had been born there and moved to US over a decade ago. My trip was about joy, adventure and fun. Although it was not conspicuous, hers was related to the deaths of two siblings, each in unexpected circumstances in the last two months. In addition, her mother had passed within the previous year. She was in fresh grief, though barely a hint of her tragedy showed. She acknowledged feeling numb as new responsibilities had not allowed room for the sorrow to sink in. My mother had passed 18 months ago, and I further related to the indescribable feelings flushed up through the unexpected loss of a beloved brother in law around the same time.
Standing in a long line in a busy airport, literally thousands of folks rushing past, we might have each endured the wait in silence. Yet here we were, within minutes, perhaps prompted by stockings (perhaps not), vulnerable and connected far beyond words. Amid all this, she was now assuming responsibility of one of the adult children her sibling had left behind and for the near future would stay in Kenya. Somehow, within everything, perhaps through the sincerity of her loving sense of purpose, her presence had a glow. Our seats were not near but we both sensed we should try and connect again in Kenya.
Her family was on my mind as I settled my 6’5” frame into the middle aisle, in a middle seat which the airline had graciously gifted me. I was headed out on a long-planned adventure, in that liminal space between excitement and feeling I ought to try to get some sleep while spending 15+ hours in an airplane. Barely into the flight, the fellow next to me couldn’t get his seat to keep upright. We joked briefly and this led to spending the majority of the flight chatting.
He was Rwandan, headed to Burundi and Mali this trip but traveled all over Africa. As I’d been in Rwanda in 2022, it opened the door on several topics. He laughed when I told him he was the most extroverted Rwandan I’d met, so we discussed his homeland. He offered a very different view of the Rwandan “president” (aka “benevolent dictator”) than I had heard while there. “Of course! They will not speak about things while they live there. They can’t!”
I asked him what his passion was and if his profession was the same. He was intrigued and delighted to tell me his passion was music but his profession was in accounting, of late mostly in the medical field. He’d worked with the great humanitarian Dr. Paul Farmer, knew and deeply respected him, and thought it wonderful I had a friend who worked at the University of Global Health Equity.
Currently he was working for companies offering traditional vaccination options in several countries in Africa. I cautiously broached the topic and learned though he’d recently worked with the Gates Foundation he “could see the bigger view because I could see where the money flowed.” He did not agree with many things about their approach to several issues, such as what they promoted in agriculture, nor especially the rubber-stamped view of the pandemic accepted without question (and even denied any civil discussion) by so many otherwise thoughtful folks I knew in the US. In a wide-ranging discussion, he was eager to share about politics and corporate influence and AI and natural resources and wars and ecological collapse. He shared a memorable phrase he’d gleaned from his economics studies that applied to many of the topics: engineered consent. It was a lengthy, rambling conversation that certainly shortened the flight.
Something that I’ve come to appreciate and be heartened by among many I’ve met from across the vast African continent is their healthy skepticism of power and the ways it is wielded. Perhaps it’s related to old and new forms of colonialism. We agreed we had the answers to all the world’s problems, if only the world would listen to us.
Despite all his earnest and articulate conversation on social issues, the highlight was when we broached music, and families. He had pursued music with great passion while young, even though no one in his extended family approved. He’d made a few CDs but the heavy hand of the Rwandan govt. promoted only propaganda and not free expression. So he had accepted getting a degree in accounting and working his way to self-sufficiency by coming to the US.
Beyond music he was even more passionate about his child. Now in his mid-40s, after 12 years of marriage, he and his spouse had their first child during Covid. Clearly it had been challenging, giving birth then. But particularly troubling to him was how even after their slightly premature son was stable, rules trumped love. He was very frustrated by what he felt was a perverse notion that did not allow him or his wife to hold their new child skin to skin for weeks, based on fear-driven protocols. I utterly agreed, relating stories of my mother being in forced physical isolation in her 90’s, and how I’d defied the rules and hugged her on visits.
We both felt strongly that touch was a foundational aspect of being a healthy human. And we were equally incredulous how, intentionally or not, even this most basic need could have become a tool in a playbook for psychological/social manipulation. It was hard not ponder if our misguided notion that technology is always an improvement for society was encouraging this regrettable slide into evermore distant, “acceptable” abstract interaction. Online teaching an obvious case in point.
We emphasize the intellect at the expense of “being” while very few question the trade-offs. Maybe all this is just more conspicuous to two people rooted in the sensual experiences the arts promote. I hope the lessons learned from the last few years include awareness of the unhealthy dangers of over-reacting and the crippling effects of acting out of fear rather than love.
Mostly though, without saying much for the first time in hours, he simply radiated silently as he shared videos of his now 18-month old: his son taking his first steps; wide-eyed gazing with awe in the vast space of Union Station; and gleefully banging away at piano keys. It’s clear to me that recognizing our innate connection to others, usually revealed through those we care about and love, transcends language and thought, time and place. Our underlying unity is always there, hidden in plain sight by our focus on a million distractions.
I did finally find some shut eye on the second leg of my flight. I was weary and bleary-eyed on arrival in Nairobi. After collecting my checked bag, I hunted several minutes for the woman I’d met in the boarding line. Resigned we wouldn’t sustain the connection, as we’d only exchanged first names, I headed toward the exit. But just before approaching the security line, I instinctively looked back one more time and spotted her. We chatted a bit more, traded contact info and hugs, then parted, feeling a bit more closure while leaving a bit more room for fate to choose whether we’ll meet again in Kenya.
In a way, I might say my departure was uneventful. Yet the richness that is life is not entirely made of physical excitement in the moment. I was in line waiting to board the first 8-hour leg of my trip, a flight to the airport in Paris, when a bright, composed-looking lady in front of me smiled and asked if I’d hold her place for a moment. “Sure.” She stepped out and put on the long compression socks I’d remembered to put on earlier in the morning. “Already got mine on this time,” I said. “It’s just so hard once you’re in those tight seats surrounded by other passengers” she replied.
We struck up a conversation, discovering we both were headed to Nairobi on the connecting flight. She had been born there and moved to US over a decade ago. My trip was about joy, adventure and fun. Although it was not conspicuous, hers was related to the deaths of two siblings, each in unexpected circumstances in the last two months. In addition, her mother had passed within the previous year. She was in fresh grief, though barely a hint of her tragedy showed. She acknowledged feeling numb as new responsibilities had not allowed room for the sorrow to sink in. My mother had passed 18 months ago, and I further related to the indescribable feelings flushed up through the unexpected loss of a beloved brother in law around the same time.
Standing in a long line in a busy airport, literally thousands of folks rushing past, we might have each endured the wait in silence. Yet here we were, within minutes, perhaps prompted by stockings (perhaps not), vulnerable and connected far beyond words. Amid all this, she was now assuming responsibility of one of the adult children her sibling had left behind and for the near future would stay in Kenya. Somehow, within everything, perhaps through the sincerity of her loving sense of purpose, her presence had a glow. Our seats were not near but we both sensed we should try and connect again in Kenya.
Her family was on my mind as I settled my 6’5” frame into the middle aisle, in a middle seat which the airline had graciously gifted me. I was headed out on a long-planned adventure, in that liminal space between excitement and feeling I ought to try to get some sleep while spending 15+ hours in an airplane. Barely into the flight, the fellow next to me couldn’t get his seat to keep upright. We joked briefly and this led to spending the majority of the flight chatting.
He was Rwandan, headed to Burundi and Mali this trip but traveled all over Africa. As I’d been in Rwanda in 2022, it opened the door on several topics. He laughed when I told him he was the most extroverted Rwandan I’d met, so we discussed his homeland. He offered a very different view of the Rwandan “president” (aka “benevolent dictator”) than I had heard while there. “Of course! They will not speak about things while they live there. They can’t!”
I asked him what his passion was and if his profession was the same. He was intrigued and delighted to tell me his passion was music but his profession was in accounting, of late mostly in the medical field. He’d worked with the great humanitarian Dr. Paul Farmer, knew and deeply respected him, and thought it wonderful I had a friend who worked at the University of Global Health Equity.
Currently he was working for companies offering traditional vaccination options in several countries in Africa. I cautiously broached the topic and learned though he’d recently worked with the Gates Foundation he “could see the bigger view because I could see where the money flowed.” He did not agree with many things about their approach to several issues, such as what they promoted in agriculture, nor especially the rubber-stamped view of the pandemic accepted without question (and even denied any civil discussion) by so many otherwise thoughtful folks I knew in the US. In a wide-ranging discussion, he was eager to share about politics and corporate influence and AI and natural resources and wars and ecological collapse. He shared a memorable phrase he’d gleaned from his economics studies that applied to many of the topics: engineered consent. It was a lengthy, rambling conversation that certainly shortened the flight.
Something that I’ve come to appreciate and be heartened by among many I’ve met from across the vast African continent is their healthy skepticism of power and the ways it is wielded. Perhaps it’s related to old and new forms of colonialism. We agreed we had the answers to all the world’s problems, if only the world would listen to us.
Despite all his earnest and articulate conversation on social issues, the highlight was when we broached music, and families. He had pursued music with great passion while young, even though no one in his extended family approved. He’d made a few CDs but the heavy hand of the Rwandan govt. promoted only propaganda and not free expression. So he had accepted getting a degree in accounting and working his way to self-sufficiency by coming to the US.
Beyond music he was even more passionate about his child. Now in his mid-40s, after 12 years of marriage, he and his spouse had their first child during Covid. Clearly it had been challenging, giving birth then. But particularly troubling to him was how even after their slightly premature son was stable, rules trumped love. He was very frustrated by what he felt was a perverse notion that did not allow him or his wife to hold their new child skin to skin for weeks, based on fear-driven protocols. I utterly agreed, relating stories of my mother being in forced physical isolation in her 90’s, and how I’d defied the rules and hugged her on visits.
We both felt strongly that touch was a foundational aspect of being a healthy human. And we were equally incredulous how, intentionally or not, even this most basic need could have become a tool in a playbook for psychological/social manipulation. It was hard not ponder if our misguided notion that technology is always an improvement for society was encouraging this regrettable slide into evermore distant, “acceptable” abstract interaction. Online teaching an obvious case in point.
We emphasize the intellect at the expense of “being” while very few question the trade-offs. Maybe all this is just more conspicuous to two people rooted in the sensual experiences the arts promote. I hope the lessons learned from the last few years include awareness of the unhealthy dangers of over-reacting and the crippling effects of acting out of fear rather than love.
Mostly though, without saying much for the first time in hours, he simply radiated silently as he shared videos of his now 18-month old: his son taking his first steps; wide-eyed gazing with awe in the vast space of Union Station; and gleefully banging away at piano keys. It’s clear to me that recognizing our innate connection to others, usually revealed through those we care about and love, transcends language and thought, time and place. Our underlying unity is always there, hidden in plain sight by our focus on a million distractions.
I did finally find some shut eye on the second leg of my flight. I was weary and bleary-eyed on arrival in Nairobi. After collecting my checked bag, I hunted several minutes for the woman I’d met in the boarding line. Resigned we wouldn’t sustain the connection, as we’d only exchanged first names, I headed toward the exit. But just before approaching the security line, I instinctively looked back one more time and spotted her. We chatted a bit more, traded contact info and hugs, then parted, feeling a bit more closure while leaving a bit more room for fate to choose whether we’ll meet again in Kenya.
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