Truth and Beauty

Some people are better “touring” travelers than others. A simple statement of fact. I am not one those people. I have tried in earnest to be a better leisure traveler, yet in a few short years I have given my wife a small twitch triggered anytime she is asked about a recent trip she has endured with me. Although final decisions remain to be made I may be barred from accompanying her anywhere that requires the use of an airplane ever again unless I am sent two days in advance.

No, I have never been an extremely effective tourist. I am great on business travel having accumulated several hundred thousand frequent flyer miles as a result. I am great traveling alone. I can even adventure travel very well. For instance, the kind of trip where some burned-out, former investment banker who plunged all his assets into a white water rafting company says, “OK here are three matches and a compass, get in that boat follow the map to this X- set-up camp, eat a grub, sleep leaning against a tree, in the morning boat some more and we will extract you at this other X at noon. Don’t be more than one hour late or we leave without you. In that event the indigenous people may or may not fuck and/or eat you…or you them…whatever, just don't be more than an hour late.”

The i-banker says that with a carefree detachment earned only by someone who brokered deals with double-digit commissions for GE prosthetics that just missed FDA approval to be imported to war torn parts of Africa. Here small children, victims of warlord violence, will have their severed limbs replaced in order that they could be put to work extracting toxic, precious metals from mountains of legacy computer parts dumped by the West to ultimately help Dupont create new industrial solvents while taking advantage of huge new “green” tax breaks because they are recycling. I love i-bankers.

Anyway, I can solo, adventure and business travel largely without incident. I am also very capable of packing a white shirt, light colored sport coat, pants and shoes for dining in a five-star restaurant while otherwise wearing only board shorts in a hut over clear blue water in Bora Bora with an itinerary of sleep, sex, sun and ceviche.

It is the in between stuff that causes me great duress. My wife, and all other people I have ever encountered (and many who only know me via anecdote) think it may be a control issue. Whatever. In the above examples I am either in total control of my destiny or there is nothing to bother controlling or perhaps most importantly I am not paying for anything. But drop me in the middle of a train station, on my own dime, in a place with no affinity for vowels and without a clear understanding of next steps or how to achieve them once delineated, I become a cornered, snarling, semi-feral creature. Or as my understanding and supportive wife says, acknowledging my fear based insecurity and intense sense of vulnerability at these junctures, “Is little Scottywhattydoodoo having a tantrum?” Yes, little Scottywhattydoodoo is having a tantrum and I need to be comforted, nay, coddled with an exacting explanation of: where I am going, how do I get there, more importantly the answer to everything that can possibly go wrong in every given circumstance in all languages and dialects currently spoken. Once this is settled I can relax and enjoy the trip. Needless to say these requirements have been an impediment in my ability to be a spontaneous and carefree traveler. Unfortunately when I do not sense these things are in place the world becomes, not hostile or unkind-that I can confront, no the world becomes indifferent. It doesn't care, my problems are not its problems and that becomes a problem, which I will make everybody else’s problem and that’s the real problem.

As stated, I have tried to become a more go with the flow traveler, taking in the sights and experiences as they come in a wide array of places while touring, unfortunately I usually still end up reverting to, “What the fuck are we just walking around for anyway?” This is not to say I do not enjoy being in a foreign city and immersing myself in its cultural ambience in order to understand its unique urban qualities—that I do extremely well. I just need to be alone, move fast and survey the city by quadrant on foot using maps, running statistical analysis of dining and retail per capita spend while developing arbitrary but relatively sound theories on coolness factors helping me decide where I would live and what I would do if I resided there. Hence being sent two days in advance of my wife’s arrival so I can grasp the landscape, find my place and settle in to it. She has control issues too but this is about self-preservation and avoiding divorce.

My touring problems begin with the general approach of, “let’s stroll here and there really slowly,” making my marathon capable legs tire in under 45 minutes as we ping-pong between meaningless landmarks. “Oh look a church not unlike the 29 others we’ve already visited today, ooooooo looky, this one has a mosaic of a third tier deity riding a gazelle. I think it depicts Hermes’ personal assistant, a wood nymph named zzzxxum, who is in charge of keeping his winged shoe collection peppy.” I hate mosaics. Love a Pollock or Kandinsky they are good abstract messy, but mosaics are bad realistic messy and always look amateurish. Seriously, it's a fucking tile floor. I’m sorry I know lots of folks love them. What can I say move to Antioch, but seriously does anyone know the name of a single mosaic guy. No, because he was the tile guy. Did Pope Julius II give a floor gig to Michelangelo? “Hey Mike, I’m thinkin’ the Old Testament on the floor here, whaddya think.” No, it was probably a team of two Italian brothers just like you call today to re-grout your shower.

No Michelangelo did not do tile floors and despite the hype maybe he should not have done giant allegorical frescos competing with Botticelli’s either, but sculpture yes. On one trip, after "lounging" which I, shockingly, was not doing very well at a villa in Tuscany, we met my wife’s family in Florence. At one point my father-in-law and I were standing transfixed in front of our favorite, does not like women or adult men but really loved the young boys, sculptor’s David. David is a true otherworldly testament to the transcendent power of art as a passage to truth and beauty. I am tempted to say something about how beautiful it is but that isn’t something missing and would he hear my testimony but I do not. There is a time for humor and a time for contemplative discussion. He turns to me and says something about feeling the presence of God. I mention that David is not to scale and that the lighting is really very good but acknowledge the connection to something divine was undeniable. Apparently humor and contemplating man’s glory to God can coexist.

Later that evening my wife tells me I look like David when I am nude. I am flattered but I am certain my cock is bigger than David’s. Seeking clarification I learn apparently it is not and I am struck once again by how art allows us to experience our own humanity both in glory and humility.

Stupid truth and beauty.

Upon our return from Italy my wife informed me she would be going to a spa in Arizona...for a week...alone.