As he walked along
the narrow streets of Tangiers, sweat running down his chest and back, the heat
tanning his body with every step, the exotic noises and smells surprising his
senses at each breath, he knew that wasn’t his place. Yet, there was no town,
no village, no building on this planet that he could call “home.” This place, like anywhere else, was not his
own. An outsider, a foreigner, a stranger, a traveller… Always.
He had ended
up in Morocco, as he could have ended up anywhere else. It was not the
destination that was important. It was the road. He was definitely looking for
something, but he didn’t know what exactly. Or maybe he was running from
something.
Once
a good friend of his had told him that, no matter where he went, he would still
carry himself along… Several years later, that simple sentence had proven
undisputedly true. Spain, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Morocco… no matter where he
went, his demons followed him… and he kept running without fully realizing that
the thing he was running from would always be within him, tenaciously wrapped
around his suffering heart, eternally spiking him, sending him to new, far-off
locations. No one escapes from his own personal demons that easily; a car-ride
or a boat trip certainly won’t do - not even taking a plane across the ocean
will.
Leonardo did
not know exactly what his demons looked like, or where they had come from, but
he could feel them there, lingering, whispering in his ears, convoluting his
thoughts, fiddling with his feelings… polluting his soul. He could hear their
voices, fragments of their speech, asking questions he could not answer,
telling truths he did not care to hear.
Leonardo’s
bright, shining eyes and curious gaze, however, betrayed the fact that this
darkness thrived within him. He was wearing blue jeans and a white shirt that
afternoon while he walked up the steep street that led to the medina. Even though his traveller’s backpack
now lay on the floor of his tiny room back at the hostel, he still remained
almost as identifiable as a tourist.
His typical European dress and paler skin
set him apart from the other people gathered on the street. There were merchants selling their goods,
their marketing technique mostly consisting of vigorous shouting and
gesticulating; by-passers bustling up and down the street in tunics of all
colors (djellabas, as they call them
in Morocco); business owners patiently waiting for clients to wander into their
shops and restaurants; a few street-wise entrepreneurs whispering, ‘Haxixe?’ at
the occasional tourist, while others offered to exchange dollars and euros for
dirhams.
All of them
were in their own, well-known environment. They knew well what their purpose
was. They fit. Leonardo did not. He was different.
As the
locals looked at him they coveted his money and maybe even envied his freedom
since most of them probably had never had the chance to go on a vacation to a
country different than their own. Yet
they couldn’t see past his seemingly bright situation into the somber depths of
his mind.
Fun was not
his goal. No, definitely not fun. That is, unless you consider moving to
Morocco to run from your demons to be a pleasant getaway. A shattered sense of identity, a general lack
of purpose, a family that could not understand him – these ghosts would just
not quit haunting him.
‘Maybe,
somehow, in Morocco I will find something different…’ he had thought before
making the decision to leave Europe. He wasn’t even entirely sure what he was
looking for… ‘Maybe all travellers have
something to escape from. Why else would
they want to leave a place where they supposedly belong?’
He took a
deep breath as he stood in front of the medina’s
oval shaped front gate. It was carved
in the middle of a long white wall at the end of the street. Catching a glimpse
inside, Leonardo could see even narrower streets that would hopefully entreasure
a new bit of Arabic culture about to be revealed to him.
Overcoming the clatter of dozens of voices
shouting in Arabic and the shuffle of hundreds of hasty steps, the sound of a
flute being played made its way from inside the medina to Leonardo’s welcoming ears. It convinced him to try to
enjoy the moment, as the arts often made him do. It reminded him that there was
so much beauty in the world waiting to be discovered and appreciated. The
sights about to unfold within the medina
were sure to be embellished by the sound of a skilled flute, the same way the
images in a movie are made more striking by a good soundtrack.
In that moment, standing in front of the
oval-shaped gate, he vowed to leave his demons at the entrance. The burden of their weight was so tiring. He
knew that by travelling he wouldn’t be rid of himself, but he could at least
try to build a new self; a self made out of fresh experiences that would
provide a term of comparison to the old ones. A new self made wiser by the
knowledge provided by travelling and reading. A new self made more complete by
the friendship and love of people who were yet to cross his way in the course
of his quest.
He travelled because he was scared. He
travelled to flee the demons that assailed him for all these years. But that
was not the only reason. He was looking for something: answers to important
questions that he could not avoid asking. Some of those questions had already raided
his mind while others were still waiting to strike. They were what made him a
traveller, just as much as his demons had. In fact, some of those questions
were fast becoming demons themselves. It was necessary to address them. He had
become a traveller because he was looking for something he could not live
without: a meaning and a purpose.
He took a step forward into the medina just as he had crossed the
threshold of the Coliseum or passed through the great doors of Notre Dame’s
Cathedral in the past and as he would come to step into palaces, huts, cities
and forests across the whole world.
He gingerly treaded into it looking for
answers as to why we are here, where we
came from or where we are going. He could not live without attempting to
understand the purpose of all these things surrounding him, and he certainly
couldn’t help but try to decipher the meaning of his own existence.
Maybe he didn’t fit in on the streets of
Tangiers, but as he dived deep into yet another world, he just knew that that
was exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He was not supposed to be at
“home,” wherever that might have been. It didn’t matter what people might have
said or thought. He travelled because he needed to find answers to his
questions or else they would eat him alive.
The Traveller is listening to:
Chop Suey (System of a Down, 2001)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSvFpBOe8eY
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