The Reader Travels

My brother visited Colombia several years ago, and his journey was almost as exciting to me as my father’s trip to Peru in the late sixties. As a sheltered American, it’s hard for me to step out of my comfort zone to explore places of such wildness and danger. And though I may never visit these beautiful countries myself, I want to know more about them.

Since my brother was in the US Air Force at the time, and his visit to Colombia was work-related, he went with the safety and structure of a well-planned government venture. Of course, being US military, he could easily be a target, but he was well prepared before he ever stepped onto the plane bound for South America.

This type of traveling reminds me of Anne Tyler’s The Accidental Tourist, the story of a man who writes guides for business travelers. His whole philosophy is that if you surround yourself with order, structure and routine, then you can handle the uncertainty and chaos of life and world travel.

The one thing that stands out in my memory of my brother’s trip to Colombia are his photos of the stations of the cross along a hillside, leading to a cross at the top of the hill. With my Catholic upbringing, this is the one thing that connected me to Colombia, this image of a shared spiritual history, and the safety and structure of repeated ritual.

I asked my man what images came to mind when he thought about Colombia. He said, “Marijuana, cocaine, drug lords, guerrilla warfare. Isn’t that what everyone thinks of?” He went on to say, “Unless you’re a real nerd. And then you might think about coffee.”

But I don’t like that image. It’s a stereotype in the same vein of conjuring boots and cowboy hats when you think of Texas. But it’s worse than that. Our stereotype of Colombia is all greed and violence. It’s all so negative. I want a happier image of Colombia. And if that means I’m dreaming about Juan Valdez, then so be it.

What if we were to think instead of treasure maps and verdant adventures, of romance, warmth and beauty? Let us all have the Colombia of Romancing the Stone, where the villains are only as dangerous as Danny DeVito. If we’re going to have our illusions, they might as well be happy ones.

(Don’t think I’m deluding myself. I know all about the drug lords. I’m just sayin’…)

From Chile, we travel north along the Pacific coast of South America to Colombia with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. From the first line of the book, we know that this will be an incredible adventure. “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

We have an image of isolation, one man alone at the end of his life, facing death. This image is paired with another, that as a child he lived in such an isolated place that he had never before seen ice. But in this sentence that speaks of isolation, we also see the word “father” and know that despite the solitude, there is family.

Marquez is a master of magical realism, and he magically creates this town of Macondo, deep in the belly of Colombia. Technology and spirituality meet to make magic in this isolated village.

The Spaniards first introduced the mystery of a world beyond the shores of South America and even shared their own spiritual mysteries, the magic of their Christ. Armed with a belief in miracles, the people in the isolated depths of the continent would enjoy centuries of mystery repeated as the outside world trickled in.

Our journeys have led us from fantasy to spirituality, heading straight toward magic. Ever since I read The House of the Spirits in college, I’ve had a thing for magical realism. So a visit with Isabel Allende in Chile will be the first stop on our magical realism tour of the world.

Although she never mentions her home country in the novel, we can still imagine the landscape of Chile and understand its political history through her story. We see beaches and country homes, mountains and gold mines, and a narrowing gap between the haves and the have nots.

Dogs emerge from the sea, a beauty with glowing green hair tempts men even after death, and our beloved Clara sees miraculous visions that we never think to question. The spirits are lively in the land of Chile.

Something of the divine has touched me this week. I started a new book, Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. A dozen books were waiting on my shelves to be read, and none of them seemed right, until I spotted this one, a recent birthday gift from a dear friend. I felt something akin to relief when I opened its pages and started to read.

In the opening chapters, she spoke of her failed marriage, and how she cried on her bathroom floor every night until one day she found herself praying to God for the first time in her life. When God told her (in her own voice) to go back to bed, she did. I closed the book and slept with her.

The next morning, I woke to a letter from my husband telling me he had this strangely out-of-character thought that God might be challenging him so he could be a better person. There was something in his letter that connected with the chapters I had read the night before, so I left them for him to read. After he read them, he said, “That’s just plain spooky.” And I had to agree.

As I read further, something else she wrote connected with me. She said to a Balinese medicine man, “I guess what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God.” This is an important theme for the memoir, and an important theme for me too. To deny myself the pleasure of love and good food and wine is to deny myself a connection with the divine.

Last night I spent the evening with my three best friends in celebration of an upcoming wedding. We ate a wonderful meal at a Spanish restaurant we’d never been to before, and afterward we had wine and chocolate while listening to live jazz music and sharing gifts with the bride to be. I stared across the table at these three women I love, watching them laugh, loving their talk of language and connecting with people across the world, and I felt blessed.

Today I am resting. I wrote in my journal, read part of my book, took a long nap with the dog and watched a movie. The movie was Babette’s Feast about these two austere women in Denmark who have devoted their lives to the memory of their father, a pastor and leader in their small community. They give shelter and work to a Parisian woman exiled from her home, and she teaches them about the enjoyment of life, love and good food.

At the feast we hear the words of the long-dead father spoken by one who remembered them. “For mercy and truth are met together. And righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another.”

But I do own a conch shell. My parents brought one home from their Bermuda honeymoon, and it sat on a book shelf in our house my entire life. As kids, we would always put the shell up to our ears so we could hear the ocean.

When I graduated from college and moved to Dallas in 1991, I was pleased to find that the beautiful new Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center seemed inspired by a conch shell. The pink marble walls curve around, leading patrons into the depths of the shell, following that mystical sound. On the inside, the colors are rich browns, velvety smooth, warm and welcoming like the meat of the conch.

Then the year before I got married, I read Tom Robbins’s Skinny Legs and All, and I worshiped his conch shell as she was meant to be worshiped. So on our honeymoon cruise to the Bahamas, the trip was not complete until we bought a conch shell of our own. The shell holds a special place in my home, the central figure of a tableau with men and little boys dancing around it.

It’s tasteful. Really.

My first introduction to Tom Robbins was through his book Skinny Legs and All, and it changed my life, taking me on a very unexpected journey and giving me a direction to follow for years to come.

Tom Robbins set me free. I figured, if he can give a bunch of inaminate objects personalities and purpose beyond their original function; if he could make a can of beans and a sock and a spoon and a stick and a conch shell speak; if he can take them all on a pilgramage to the holy land, then why can’t I grant a magical life to a magnolia tree?

Not that as a writer I could ever compare myself to the hilarious and mystical Mr. Robbins, but I can still be inspired by him.

Even though my grandmother had always challenged me to write her family history, I knew I could never have enough facts to make it more than fiction. I wanted to use the magnolia tree as a symbol of her life, of the generations of women in her family. I never imagined I could make the tree more than a symbol, but the conch shell and the painted stick, those wielders of magic and protectors of ancient religions, have granted her real life.

As I start to shop for publishers, I do wonder, though, who will be my audience. Lovers of family drama who are also fans of Tolkien’s ents? It’s a thin line, but I know you’re out there.

Yes, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings, created new worlds and new languages, and popularized the fantasy genre of fiction, but he was also proud to call himself a Catholic.

And if J.R.R. was alive today, he would probably be among those enraged by the chocolate Jesus. I wonder which would be more offensive to him - that the Messiah was edible, or that he was naked.

It’s Holy Thursday today, the day we celebrate the Last Supper where Jesus said, “Take my body and eat it.” Of course, according to the Holy Church, He tasted like flat, flavorless bread instead of sweet, sweet chocolate. But I believe that if Jesus had ever eaten chocolate, he would have approved. He might even have seen it as a very special gift from his father.

No, we’re not talking about the little people anymore. We’re talking about rock and roll.

Just as Tolkien has his caves, Alice in Chains has their hole. And this time the womanly metaphor is a little more obvious. In the song “Down in a Hole,” the hole is both a womb and a tomb. The man is asking to be buried, “softly.” It’s so sweet, but it’s a trap. He loses himself, but doesn’t know how to escape. Buried alive…

Down In A Hole, Losin’ My Soul
Down In A Hole, Out Of Control
I’d Like To Fly
But My Wings Have Been So Denied

It doesn’t really have to be mysoginistic, though. I have to admit I’ve felt like this in relationships, too, like I became someone I’m not, forgetting who I am, and remembering again, once I’ve freed myself from the trap.

The real trap, though, is feeling like a love relationship can’t be anything but a trap, a loss of self. When it’s right, you could actually find yourself… flying.