Journey's End

The Rijksmuseum treats art as therapy.  Inside the gallery, there are yellow posters strewn around various paintings.  The authors of these giant post-it notes explain art in a very warm, approachable manner.  Museum-going is often viewed as a snobby activity designed to elevate one’s status and exercise the cerebral cortex.  But the average person shouldn’t feel pressured to memorize names, dates, or styles.  We can admire pretty pictures simply because they make us happy or they make us forget our pain. 

Art doesn’t have to be cold or boring.  I hate staring at portraits of stuck-up aristocrats with pale skin and frilly clothing.  The women always look like they could use a good screw, and the men seem as though they haven’t laughed in ages.  But if I don’t want to contemplate these stern faces, I don’t have to.  I can just move onto the next pretty picture. 

“Life is short and not all artworks are doing things that you need,” the post-it note authors wrote, “We tend to blame ourselves if we feel bored in an art gallery, but boredom can be an insight:  a signal to yourself that nothing worthwhile for you is on offer.”

What if I approached life as though it were a museum filled with people instead of paintings?  Why am I propelled to make the friends I’ve made?  How have I developed these tastes?  And why do some connections tug at me just a little bit harder?    

On this trip to Europe, I have crossed paths with many strangers, and there are a few people I’ve grown to truly admire.  By the end of the tour, most of my best friends happened to be those I sought out in the beginning.  There were two picnic tables outside a London pub where we had our first conversations.  Initially, I didn’t say much to those surrounding me, but then these people became the hardest to say goodbye to.  I don’t know if this is a coincidence.  Or perhaps we can judge based on outward appearances and intrinsic qualities who would make for better companions. 

Although it is easy to get swept away with our emotions, I’m not so sentimental as to suggest I’ve gained a new family.  A bond that strong is not so easily formed in one month.  But I will say I’ve made friends I will think about when I return home.  I will wonder how their lives are different now that we are no longer together.

Before setting out on a solo journey to Europe, I had not expected to be shaped and altered by the people I met.  I adopted new philosophies and absorbed foreign accents.  Thanks to the Aussies and the Kiwis in my company, words like “keen” and “heaps” make more frequent appearances in my vocabulary.

More important than the lingo is the truth behind the words we said to each other.  We only had thirty-two days to get to know one another, so whatever was on our minds we had best say it because we couldn’t be certain we’d see each other again.  This is the fullest way to live, but not all of us can maintain this effort permanently. 

As we hugged each other goodbye, we held back tears or let them loose and made promises that we may not keep.  Plans for future reunions are handy distractions from the pain of momentary loss.  As humans, we get ridiculously attached to the people and the places we’ve come to like. 

If we could evade the tethering responsibilities of conventional life, we might delude ourselves into thinking we should stay on the bus and continue riding around Europe until we grow sick and tired of it.  We never want to leave a paradise, so long as it remains new.  But eventually even the exotic places can become too familiar, and we so easily grow weary of the same old, same old.

“The reason I like chocolate cake is because I don’t eat it all the time,” I said to my friend Dan during our last day on the ride back to London.

“Isn’t there a saying like absence——or is it distance——makes the heart grow fonder?” he said.

“Either one would do.”

Despite the melancholic partings and the lump in the back of my throat, I was eager to return home, where I didn’t have to pay to use the bathroom.  I could keep all of my clothes in a dresser rather than haul them around on my back.  I couldn’t wait to stay in one spot for a while.  But it is conceivable that I may tire of this routine and feel trapped inside the house once more.

During my habitual morning walk to the mailbox at the end of the driveway, I am bound to gaze down the block and wonder what lay beyond.  If my surroundings become stale and I grow bored with this gallery of the world, I can move onto the next pretty picture.  A desire to seek lands yet unacquainted with our eyes may drive us out of our homes, but stunning views are rarely the most satisfying souvenirs.    

Without the aid of this journal and my camera, details of this journey would surely grow foggy with time.  Even though I took care to document the events at the end of each day, moments were assuredly lost and undoubtedly exaggerated.  Memory is unreliable and imperfect, yet the company we keep does its best to leave indelible imprints.