After the presidential election, a friend and I packed our bags and headed out of Texas to New Orleans for the weekend. We would be staying with a friend’s friend, a generous and thoughtful Louisiana man who we’d meet on arrival.
Fakes and Masquerades in New Orleans, LA
I traveled to New Orleans, LA from Newark, NJ during a rainstorm and worried the whole flight. Not so much about the turbulence in the air, but about the conference I was traveling for. I was to present and receive awards regarding urban youth projects I work on in New Jersey, and would have to wear formal and business wear. Would I look awkward, or uncomfortable, or worse still, phony?
Just Be Aware: The Politics of Traveling Alone
Just be aware.
I’m going for a road trip on my own, to my new home. I cross the desert into Texas. My sense of self is shifting, as I leave my hometown and find a new environment many miles away. My sense of place is being shaken (at will, but that doesn’t make it less scary.)
Travel makes me pay attention. Discomfort helps, too.
In March 2016 I arrived in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles with no context and no idea of how this city was laid out. (My fault; I did no research. Between grad school and work I hardly had the time to book a room, let alone look up things to do in the area. This is a familiar theme for me.)
Assumptions in the Desert
“There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it.” -The Dispossessed, Ursula K. LeGuin
We make assumptions. For example, as a writer, I make assumptions about my audience, about you. One of those assumptions is that you read, most of you widely, and many of you deeply. Since this blog is attached to a literary journal, it is very possible that some of you write. At the same time, I could be completely wrong. That is the nature of assumption after all.
Last week, my wife and I were driving through a small town in the Utah desert. The evening was approaching and I was hungry. The next town was probably an hour off. The problem was that we only passed two restaurants on the highway, China Star and Pizzaria. Take a moment to look at the pictures and you might make some assumptions of your own.