As a little girl, the world fascinated me. There were no limits as to what I could and couldn’t see. There was a place for me wherever I wanted to go.
In third grade, my parents told my brother and I that they were going to take us to London. Writing this at 20 years old, I am almost astonished that they took me on this type of trip at such a young age. Why not go to Disney World or take an inexpensive trip within the country? But I remember absolutely everything about that trip. The second I came home, I created a DIY book capturing every single memory. I included photos and even saved a singular pound to keep. **Yes, it’s still there.**
As I grow older, all I want to do is continue to travel. We have one life, so why not see everything we possibly can? I don’t want the earth to seem like this foreign place with people who I will never be able to understand. Travel allows me to connect with people whom I never imagined I would’ve met otherwise.
And while I probably won’t understand everyone I meet, I at least want a chance to connect. I love to listen. Even better, I love to listen to strangers, whether it be in my hometown or across the globe. If you see me in a cafe, chances are I will be making conversation with someone who is a stranger. And what’s truly beautiful about this is that once that conversation is over and we go about our own lives, that person is no longer a stranger. They are an individual whom I now know something about. That something may be as small as their coffee order (which is extremely important to me, by the way) or as big as their valuable life stories.
I believe connecting with people holds power. When I was in fifth grade, I read a book called “So Far from the Bamboo Grove” by Yoko Kawashima Watkins for my English class. I was fascinated with the author’s story and about her experience fleeing from her country during World War 2. I craved more.
The universe put that book in my hands for a reason. I discovered the author was from Brewster, Massachusetts, an hour away from where I lived. I wanted to meet her. I needed to. I had my mom read the book. She loved it too, and afterward, we wrote a letter to Ms. Watkins together and dropped it at her house along with a bouquet of flowers. A few weeks later, we met the author at a Japanese restaurant outside of Boston with her daughter, who, coincidently, was also named Michelle, and we chatted about the book and her life experiences over her favorite foods. It is a memory I will always treasure, and I didn’t even travel that far to make it.
Even those that seem so distant from you are never as far as you think. This is how I always strive to feel. I want more people and places to feel less foreign to me.
Since visiting London in 2012, I’ve also traveled to Arizona, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Florida, Washington D.C. and a few other states bordering Massachusetts. My most recent trip was to Sint Maarten in the Caribbean with my boyfriend and his mother. I went into this trip quite blind (in a good way, I’d say…) and had no idea what to expect in terms of the culture, people and geography.
Beforehand, I searched up photos of the island and the resort we were staying at. The second we stepped off the plane, my eyes widened. I found myself getting emotional. I was “elsewhere.”
The airport was not “typical.” The taxis weren’t yellow — they were huge vans — and they didn’t have the word “Uber” labeled in bright letters on the front dash. I felt out of place in all the chaos. The water was incredibly blue, the air hot and humid, and palm trees surrounded me. I felt equal parts lost and overwhelmed. But my main feeling was excitement.
I felt my younger 8-year-old self return and come alive. As we all sat in the taxi and drove to the resort, I looked out the window. The streets were so narrow. The cars were different than at home. Stray dogs roamed the neighborhood. Some locals walked in the middle of the streets, many cars honked frequently and homes differed from the ones I had seen online. Everything caused me to feel so out of place, so privileged. I know that not everyone in the world lives in a place that looks like Boston, but I have never seen anything like this. It was my first real culture shock. If you aren’t sure whether you’ve had one or not, you will be aware when you do.
The resort was beautiful. It was more of what I expected: the people, the room the tourists. I have been around these types of people before. Many of them are like myself. But several aspects of the resort were also new to me. I said no to some of the employees offering up services. I said no to food I had not tried. At certain times, I felt too privileged.
Anyone you surround yourself with will become less of a stranger. It felt so comforting by the last two days of the trip to know some of the other travelers and employees at the resort by name. I loved hearing stories like the man who made the pizzas while exchanging conversation with Stephen, one of the bartenders. I loved learning about their knowledge of the island, the culture, and who they were as humans aside from their jobs. I loved that they became people I knew rather than strangers.
I am writing this on my plane ride home from Sint Maarten. My heart has grown wider, my appreciation, bigger. It’s crazy to me how travel can expand your mindset and truly increase your knowledge. Did you know plantains aren’t bananas? I am so grateful to have traveled and had such an amazing experience. My 8-year-old self felt like she was screaming with joy about the amazing experience she had. I’ve come a long way since London.
Although I am not saving any currency this time around, I am semi-carrying that tradition of preservation; I brought an old film camera, the ones you buy at CVS that you have to wait to get developed. I wanted photos from this trip to be different and more memorable than the ones stuck in my iPhone camera roll. I am holding this essay, too, as my memory. Rereading this will allow me to time travel and remember that foreign places and strangers are not as different as we think. Unfamiliarity is good for the soul.