A 5 minute read

While road tripping in 2016 to complete my “All 50 States” tour, I pulled over along a desolate highway. The sunset views against Arizona’s Painted Desert deserved so much more than a passing glance as I drove through. I got out of my car and stood amidst absolute, complete silence and watched nature take place.

I’d never seen anything like it. Iridescence cascaded into/like an overture/coloratura across the sky.  The sun painted murals on rock formations. Fallen, petrified trees from the late Triassic period, 225 million years ago interspersed throughout the barren landscapes soon gave way to majestic silhouettes accented by stars that seemed close enough to pull right out of the sky.

There I stood, somewhere between, “the bright blessed day and dark sacred night” that inspired Armstrong’s crooning and led him to rejoice, “What a wonderful world.” Wonderful world, indeed.

Engulfed in awe of the creator’s innovation, my heart overflowed with gratitude that the composer saw fit to share this masterpiece with me.
At the moment, an elucidation that captured this experience from Forest Gump, long buried in the depths of my mind, rose to the surface, “In the desert, when the sun comes up, I couldn’t tell where heaven stopped, and Earth began. It was so beautiful.” At this moment, I too struggled to distinguish Heaven from Earth. For the first time, I understood.

Surrounded by both vast nothingness and the density of significance at once, all of the people I love came to mind. I wanted them to have a moment like this. I wished they could witness this. I craved for them to feel all of this.  

I view the world through a historical lens. Whereas an engineer may look at something and ask how it works, I look for clues left by previous generations to learn the story of why and document to provide clues for the next.  I travel in order to cover as much ground as possible to increase the probability that I trace the steps of my progenitors but also, lay a path for descendants.  I try to have many unique experiences so when others experience the same, it bridges a gap of understanding in a way that it couldn’t by being explained.

For example, I grew up in a military family. Saturday mornings often started with a G.I. Party (the military community knows, this is not an exciting event) and getting ready for school came with the expectation that it only takes three minutes to do the  Three S’s. After 22 years of growing up in that environment, it wasn’t until I experienced military training for myself that I learned it is indeed possible to get ready in three minutes (which is 90 seconds more than what’s actually needed).  That experience helps me relate to every American warfighter that has come before me in a way I couldn’t before.  Visiting Charleston, I was filled with an enormous sense of family connection. Although I don’t know for sure, the statistics make it highly probable that someone from my family’s past walked the same streets centuries before. Even after reading Little Women multiple times and watching both versions of the movie, it wasn’t until visiting the March family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Mass that I felt that I really got to know the family.  Tracing the steps of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Lois Mailou Jones in Paris’ Latin Quarter helps to understand their muses and inspires creativity of one’s own. The same goes for visiting the homes and frequented localities of all historical figures. It gives a snapshot of the surroundings of the historical figure, how they lived, and what influenced their thoughts. It helps to understand how they worked through some of their decisions and thought processes. I know, from visiting the Kennedy Library and Museum that Jacqueline took a cruise to Paris with friends while in college and it was the best year of her life. But I don’t know any such information about anyone in my family.

I’d like to able to know and connect with my family in the same way, but so much of my family’s history went undocumented. I do have some say over the documentation prepared for the future of my family to be able to know and connect in the same way that I do historical figures.

So I travel. I do things. I search out a diversity of experiences, not only so I can find some commonality with people I come in contact with today, and so I can relate to people of yesteryear, but also for those who come next will be able to identify with me in some way.

Regardless of France’s past and current transgressions as colonizers, and irrespective of the more impactful uses of contribution money, Notre Dame’s burning is a loss.  The losses of St Mary Baptist, Greater Union Baptist, and Mount Pleasant Baptist in Louisiana and the several mosques also burning at the same time does not detract from the loss of this Catholic Church in France. It is a loss of history — literary history, architectural history, religious history, cultural history, and personal history. And it is a loss of a future. Three generations of women in my family explored this site together during a wonderful summer trip, and now, our future generations will not see it as we saw it.

In the wake of the devasting fire to Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, social media users flooded their timelines with the nostalgia of Paris vacations.  Criticisms grew that this act was merely bragging.  When we grieve the loss of a pet, it is common to remember by showing pictures of the memories with them. When we mourn the loss of a loved one, we do the same thing. When a home full of warm memories is lost, we often use pictures to help us remember those memories and grieve. And in the most heartbreaking occasions, when a dream is lost, one of the ways we grieve is by looking at pictures of that dream.  Have we gotten so cynical and disconnected from humanity that we confuse the human emotion of grief for bragging? And really, isn’t that the central focus on social media? A platform to draw attention to yourself?

The places we travel become the setting for the story of our lives.  Perhaps, my progeny won’t give their ancestors a second thought, but at least if they do, the more places I travel, the easier it will become for those who come after me to visit and find a connection if they so wished. When they find themselves randomly out in the middle of the desert, witnessing all its glory, and they’re longing for someone to share it with, they’ll know they had an adventurous ancestor who sent everywhere and saw everything and likely witnessed it and felt the same way too.  Perhaps, if the Earth is still around, four generations from now,  my offspring will visit France’s capital. Perhaps they’ll respond just like me and marvel at finally witnessing the architecture discussed in classes first hand. Perhaps they’ll be like some of my travel companions and be underwhelmed.  Perhaps, if it is rebuilt, they’ll climb the tower. Perhaps if restored properly, they won’t have to climb the steps and take the elevator instead. Maybe my future offspring will see the cathedral for the first time with friends. Perhaps they’ll make their mark on eternity and get engaged right next to the Charlemagne statute, under the shade of the trees.  At the very least, perhaps those scions will at least have the primary source document that shows four generations of women in their family have gone to Paris, strolled the narrow alleyways, delighted in the cuisine, and had their picture taken in front of La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris.