XII - Wanderer

Almost two months have passed since Leonardo left Leeds, embracing adventure and craving new discoveries. Since then, many things have happened: He met many interesting people and he had the opportunity to see some old friends again; He has contemplated several beautiful landscapes, some old and some new; He has found some answers to some of his questions. Yet despite all of that, he has arrived at Lisbon with even more questions in his mind than the ones he had before leaving England. 

     He left that country driven by the inexorable desire to discover new realities, which could possibly enable him to find some answers to those questions that plagued his mind. He left without knowing his destination, embracing the uncertainty of his future. He was proud of himself for having the courage to follow his heart instead of giving up to the pressures manufactured by family and society alike. He hailed towards his destiny as a free man, determined to let free will, and not faith, be the one to determine his fortune.

            When he left Leeds, Manchester was his destination at first. There was no specific reason behind that choice. It was an arbitrary decision, a first step, and necessary, despite the absence of deep meaning. It was necessary to leave Leeds behind above all things. Since Manchester was close and he had never been there before, he decided that it would serve as a first landing place.

            The town itself didn’t offer much interest. In many ways, it was like a perfect clone of Leeds (or the other way around). It’s strange how the majority of the big English cities, like Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool or Manchester look like clones of one another. In other European countries, such as France, Italy or Spain, every city has its own personality.

Paris and Marseille, for example, are completely different from each other. Paris is elegant and refined, a perfect representation of the European civilization. Marseille, by contrast, presents itself to the visitor as an extension of the Mediterranean world. It’s dirty, chaotic, noisy, violent and flamboyant. Its population is almost equal parts Arab and European. If not for the fact that French is spoken in both cities, they would hold nothing in common.

The same can be said about the cities in the Italian peninsula: Roma, Città Eterna, in eternal ostentation of majestic ruins of a glorious past of gladiators and emperors, where it stood as the centre of the world; nothing to do with the equally proud Florence, switching the imposingness of classic architecture for the beauty of Renascence art; or old Venice, standing between land and sea, city-museum enchanting tourists from all four corners of the world yearlong. It’s as beautiful as it is unique, with its charming water channels and its old white and grey buildings that transport the visitor to a long-gone era, when a sovereign Venice rule the seas through both commerce and war. Venice, that like every important Italian city retains to this day its unique personality that distinguishes it from others.

Go to back to England only to find cities without spirit. They’re like franchises ruled by franchises. It doesn’t matter if you are in Manchester, Leeds or Liverpool, streets have the same names, just like squares, parks and public buildings. The architecture is identical. The people look the same. Traditions and customs do not vary. And, most alarmingly, even discos, bars, pubs and restaurants, nine times out of ten, are part of big chains that can be found in any of those cities. Prêt-a-Manger, McDonald’s, KFC, Domino’s, O’Neil’s, Subway… you can find them all in any city in Britain. The same goes for clothing shops and even food brands.

Maybe that was precisely what he found most impressive in Manchester. The fact that, while walking along its streets, while having lunch at a restaurant, when buying a refreshment in a food stand or even while having a drink at the evening, he went to the same places and walked along the same streets and consumed the same brands. He felt as if I he was still in Leeds. The only difference is that now he was alone, he was sleeping at a hostel and that a new, completely different, stage of his life had just begun.    

Leonardo only stayed one night in Manchester, since it didn’t make a lot of sense for him to stay any longer than that. When he arrived at Liverpool, the following day, he soon realized that it was yet another clone-city, virtually identical to Leeds or Manchester. With the exception of the port, or the Beatles museum, there was very little to see or do.

            And yet, although he was feeling a bit disappointed, he was also starting to feel something else. At first, he couldn’t comprehend exactly what was going on with him. Nothing extraordinary had happened; nevertheless he was felt as if something had changed inside of him. He felt different, even though he didn’t know exactly what was different about him.

The truth is that, simply put, he felt free. Truly liberated, for the first time in his life, now that he had finally taken the decision to ignore social pressures and set himself free. Although he knew that he couldn’t live like that indefinitely, at least in that moment of his life he was a free individual. Liberty had taken over his soul, contaminating every single cellule of his being. He had taken the first step towards his future. He had had broken the chains that imprisoned him and he had drunk from the chalice of freedom.

            The first step had set him free. He had fallen into the void, only to learn how to fly. The second step promised steeper difficulty. He knew how to fly. Now he had to find out where to flight.

            After spending a few days at the city of the Beatles, where he stayed at a youth hostel, he took a bus from Liverpool to London where he met a friend from Lisbon who was now living in London.

            ‘You know Leonardo your phone call really caught me by surprise. How long has it been? Five, six years?’ He told him when we met at his place in London.

            ‘Actually, I think it was seven, Bono. We haven’t talked since we finished school.’ His real name was Francisco, but he got the nickname of Bono because he was totally crazy about U2. When he turned 18 Leonardo and his other friends got together and bought him a ticket for a conveniently timed concert of the band in Lisbon. Boy was he happy when they finally gave him that ticket! He even kissed a couple of them in the euphoria of the moment.

            Leonardo and Francisco were good friends at that age, but they hadn’t seen each other since they finished high school. Back then Leonardo had gone to Spain to study while Francisco had migrated to England in order to pursue his musical education. Now he was working for a recording studio in London and, perhaps most surprisingly, he had recently gotten married to a blonde English girl called Rita!

            Leonardo stayed at their house for almost a week, crashing on the comfy sofa in the living room. They had rented a comfortable one-room apartment together in Kensington a few months before that. Both were fine hosts. In fact, Leonardo’s initial intention had been to stay only a couple of days at their place, but at Bono’s insistence he ended up staying almost a week. ‘I don’t know when the next time will be when we can spend some time together,’ he had said to convince him. He was right. Leonardo had no idea of when he was going to go back to England.
       After several days spent telling and hearing stories of their shared adolescence over a few beers at a variety of London bars, Leonardo thanked him for his hospitality and got ready to, once again, hit the road.

            ‘So where you’re heading next, cowboy?’

            ‘Paris, I think, at least at first.’

            ‘That city is pretty expensive, like London. Do you have anyone you can stay with there?’

            ‘Maybe…’

Leonardo had spent a good part of the last summer in Paris, the reason for it being love. The name of the girl was Margot and she was a student at the Sorbonne. Leonardo had met her in Leeds in his first year, when she was an Erasmus student there. After she returned to France, they kept in touch, and by the end of Leonardo’s second year Leonardo went to Paris and he ended up spending the whole summer there with her, by the end of which he was even more in love: an unwise thing to do, as he was soon to discover. Completion of his last year of studies in Leeds pending, he returned to England, and saw her affection meager as the weeks passed. One day she finally said the words. ‘I don’t want anything serious, I’m sorry. Maybe we can be friends.’ Leonardo had given her his heart, only to see it returned torn in a thousand pieces: a foolish thing indeed, to fall in love.

Yet, in spite of all that, Leonardo decided to see her as he went back to Paris. His mind knew it was a bad idea all along, but his irrational heart was taking the upper hand. In a last attempt to choose mind over heart he sat at a Parisian café, and ordered a “café au lait” in the pursuit of coming to a smart decision. ‘Should I see her or not?’ For one full hour he tried to convince himself that it was not wise to see her again. ‘I should just ignore her existence and spend time by myself visiting the Eiffel tower and walking along the banks of the Seine, like any other tourist.’ And yet, no matter how much he tried to talk sense into it, his foolish heart persisted in its madness. So he paid the bill and walked out of the café, knowing all too well that he was making a mistake, but incapable of stopping himself.

At nightfall when he knocked, a guy opened the door. Bad sign. Apparently she was in the shower, and thus, unable to come to the door.

‘Qui êtes-vous?’ The guy asked; a tough question considering the situation.

  ‘Un ami,’ Leonardo finally answered. The suspicious expression stamped on his face was revelatory enough. It was a bad idea after all.

‘Tu t’appelles comment?’

‘Leonardo. Tell her I decided to come to Paris for a few days and I decided to pass by her house to say hi… maybe next time.’

‘Maybe.’

He shut the door in Leonardo´s face, visibly upset. So Leonardo descended the stairs of the old Parisian building and walked along the slender streets bathed by the moonlight and he shed tears of jealousy, and rage and sadness and he took the subway to get to the train station. What an idiot he was.

XI - Return to Lisbon

Like always, being back in Lisbon feels weird to Leonardo. Bittersweet emotional bonds link him to the city that saw him step into the shoes of the young man that he is today, but he left her as soon as he could after the secondary school graduation ceremony.  Despite his mixed feelings about it, however, if there is one place where he feels at home, this is it: old, melancholic Lisbon.

The first time that Leonardo stepped on Portuguese soil was about twenty years ago when he was just 6 years old. On that distant summer day, he got his first glimpse of Lisbon from 2,000 meters in the air with his mother and her second husband, Manuel. He kept a vague remembrance of that day at the back of his mind but every time he came back he relived it.  It didn’t seem so long ago, now.
He remembers saying goodbye to his grandparents before leaving Rio - a goodbye drenched in tears. He remembers flying for the first time, and how it terrified him even then. He remembers the strange accent of the Portuguese people, of walking slowly behind his mother and Manuel through the airport, observing the people and marveling at how different they were from the people back home. And he remembers crossing the airport rotating doors and taking a glance at a new city, a new country and a new continent all at once. This was to be his home for the next ten years of his life.

Two decades later, Leonardo arrives at Lisbon once more, this time not as a foreigner, but rather as a prodigal son returning home.

He arrives at dawn, as always. The bus stops at the main bus station in Lisbon, Gare do Oriente, meaning eastern station, a fitting name since it is located in the eastern part of town. Eight hours travelling non-stop from Madrid, traversing the endless Iberian roads until finally reaching the western-most point of the Peninsula – what a ride.  Leonardo lost track at some point of how many times he had been on that particular nocturnal journey, since taking the night-bus from Madrid was often the last stage of his trips going back to Lisbon from several points in Europe. Even when he resigned himself to taking a plane, he usually disembarked at Madrid’s international airport, since it was much easier to find a flight to Barajas, Madrid’s international airport, than to Lisbon.

Travelling by night is always better than travelling by day, especially in what comes to long bus trips. A bus trip from Madrid to Lisbon usually takes around eight hours. During the day it can be quite a tiring trip, especially in the summer, the buss cramped with smelly, moody passengers, fustigated by the intense heat. However, the nocturnal journey had gone relatively fast, cut short by the long sleeping hours Leonardo managed to snatch, spread over two seats of the half-empty bus.

Leonardo collapses on one of the empty benches at the station, placing his backpack filled with a bunch of crumpled, dirty clothes along with an old laptop and a few books and notebooks by his side. Looking at his watch he realizes its still four forty-five in the morning – an hour earlier than he expected. He sighs. ‘It’s still too early. I can’t knock at my mom’s door this time in the morning, especially considering that I didn’t even tell her that I was coming today. No, I’ll have to wait at least a few hours before going home.’

           

           
The Traveller is Listening to:

Lisboa Menina e Moça (Carlos do Carmo, 1976)
http://videos.sapo.pt/2wvIplCKIZ6863z3Ojjp

VIII - Something Else Out There

‘This is the end of an Era man. Do you realize how big this is? Everything we’ve done in our lives, it was leading up to this moment. It was all build-up for the real thing, which is this very moment.’

            ‘ What do you mean?’

            ‘I mean this is it man! How old are you?’

            ‘ You know how old I am.’

            ‘26 right?’

            ‘Yeah.’

            ‘Okay. Out of those 26 years that you have lived so far, how many did you spend studying?’

            ‘I don’t know… maybe 20’.

            ‘Right. And before that you were too young to even make decisions by yourself or do anything at all by yourself for that matter.’

            ‘Yeah. So what’s your point?’

            ‘My point, dear Jean, is that our entire lives so far have been sacrificed to the preparation for what lies ahead. And whatever that is, it is upon us. It’s scary and exciting at the same time. We have so many possibilities, so much choice, that choosing just one option seems more daunting than never.’

            ‘Yeah maybe, but we have more opportunities than any generation before us. Our great-grand-parents, our grand-parents and even our parents didn’t have nearly as much of a say on what they wanted to do with their lives as we do. We can do pretty much anything, and for this we should feel blessed.’

            ‘I agree… to a certain extent. My point is that we’ve reached a point where we have so many options to chose from that actually picking one single option is very, very hard. I feel lost in an ocean of possibilities.’

            ‘So what do you think we should do? How do you think we can finally find the shore?

            ‘I dunno… I just graduated and I’m already sorry I chose to study Philosophy. It makes a lot more sense as a subject of study inside Academia than it does in the outside world.’

            ‘Yeah… but now is too late.’

            Yes it is… but you know what? I don’t know if I would have done anything different if I could go back in time… or maybe I would, but to be honest, even now I don’t know what. I think that there is a fundamental problem that I can’t seem to be able to solve.’

            ‘What is it?’

            ‘The meaning of life.’

            ‘Come on man! Maybe you shouldn’t have spent that much time studying philosophy after all.’

            ‘Maybe not.’

            ‘You made me curious now though, what do you mean by that exactly?’

            ‘Well you see, choosing a subject of study is, in essence, choosing a path in life, wouldn’t you agree?’

            ‘Yes, I suppose.’

            ‘But what if you can’t decide which one your path is? Then what?  

            ‘I guess in that case it would be hard to choose a subject of study.’

            ‘Exactly. Now sometimes, people can’t overcome this fundamental difficulty decide to postpone the resolution of this complex problem and they do so by choosing to study vague things like philosophy in my case or Economy in yours.’

            ‘Well, I don’t know, economics is not that vague.’

            ‘Are you sure? What job are you expected to have after you finish a degree in economics?’

            ‘A job in a company.’

            ‘What sort of company? Doing what?’

            ‘Well… any sort of company. Doing accounting, management, stuff like that.’

            ‘Stuff like that…any sort of company… doesn’t that sound a little bit vague to you?’

            ‘Well, I guess you have a point,’ conceded Jean-Pierre.

            I believe I do Jean. Even if we postponed the resolution of the fundamental problem by choosing to study vague subjects, here we are now, faced with implacable choices once again. The problem is, now it’s a lot harder to keep postponing that choice. The time has come to decide what task we are going to perform in society.’

            ‘Man, you make it sound so dramatic!’

            ‘Is it not? Don’t you think that the task we perform in society is probably the single most important factor that defines us as individuals? So if that is the case, don’t you think that selecting that task is not a dramatic choice?

             ‘At least everyone has to go through the same process, so we’re not alone.’

            ‘Everyone has to be born and has to die too, and that doesn’t make those events any less dramatic. In fact, choosing a task in life might even be more dramatic than birth or death, since it is the only one out of the three that is dependent on one’s free-will.’

            ‘Leonardo, relax. It’s hard but everyone goes through that process at some point in his or her life. Right now it’s our turn, and I know that it’s hard but we’ll manage like everyone else does.’

            ‘Yeah, we’ll be like everyone else. They are born and they go to school and to university in order to prepare themselves to become engineers and lawyers and doctors and dentists and architects and computer experts and whatever else society wants them to be. And they live their lives happily, knowing that they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing.’

            ‘What other choice do we have man?’

            ‘I don’t know… It seems that we have none. Yet in my heart I feel that there must be something else, and in my brain ideas of rebellion are starting to flourish. I don’t know what else we can do but there must be something!’ Said Leonardo, clinching his right fist. ‘Maybe there is an answer to this question and maybe it’s hidden somewhere out there in the world. There must be… and I want to look for it.’

            ‘How are you planning on doing that?’

            ‘I’m gonna hit the road. I’m going to travel the world trying to find this truth. I must do it.’

            ‘What if it’s not out there?’

            ‘The I won’t find it. Yet I have to try. I just can’t go through with this right now man. I can’t start looking for a job right now until I can figure out if there’s something out there.’

The Traveller is Listening to:

Dust in the Wind (Kansas, 1977)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH2w6Oxx0kQ

IX - Villain

 

And so it goes that, as it often happens when it comes to love, joy gives place to

pain.

            ‘’I’m so sorry, I think this is the only way out.’

            ‘No, it’s not. It’s only that way because you want it to be. We could be together if you only chose to give it a chance.’

            ‘It just can’t be, it’s not meant to be.’

            Her two big amber eyes act as windows into her spirit. They reflect her emotions as if they were mirrors reflecting images. First they show hope, then disappointment and then unmistakable sadness.

            ‘Look, I like you. But there are things that I need to do and I need to do them alone.’

            Disappointment and sadness turn into anger.

            ‘You like me?’ She asks, with an ironic intonation well carved into her voice. ‘You like me?’ She repeats the question. Louder this time, rage building up inside her.

            ‘If you didn’t want to be with me why didn’t you say so before? Why did you wait till now?’

            ‘I didn’t plan this. It just happened.’

            ‘Did you ever really liked me?’

            ‘I did, It’s not you, it’s me. And I really mean it.’

            ‘Don’t you have anything better than that? “It’s not you, it’s me?” Don’t you realize what a cliché that is’ I think I deserve better than that.’

            ‘Chloe, that’s not what I mean. I’m confused right now and I have to figure some things out by myself. I’m planning on travelling for a while and trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. This is a journey that I have to make by myself. Can’t you understand that?’

            ‘What do you need to figure out? You’ve graduated, now you’re supposed to get a job, serve society, pay back what it has given you all these years and, at some point, start your own family so you can leave your legacy in this world when you die. And you don’t need to do it alone, You shouldn’t have to do it alone!’

            ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is that simple. Yet I can’t do it now. I have to travel first and decide what I really want to do with my life before doing anything else. I want to get to know the world and to get to know myself now that I can. I’m not prepared to surrender ambition and freedom yet.’

            ‘Don’t you think that love can overpower ambition and freedom? Don’t you think that love can give meaning to one’s life?’

            ‘Perhaps in six months or a year from now I will be ready to surrender y freedom and ambition for a good cause but I’m afraid that I can’t do that now.’

            ‘Not even in the name of love?’

            ‘In the name of anything is that possible.’

            ‘Then maybe when you come back from your trip love will no longer be waiting for you. Maybe I will no longer be waiting.’

            ‘This is a risk I must take. Like many others.’

            ‘When are you planning on leaving?’

            ‘Soon.’

            ‘Soon? You don’t know when exactly?’

            ‘No. I’ll let you know when I do.’

            ‘Are you sure you’re gonna tell me?’

            ‘…’

A last kiss, flooded with tears. This is the last time he is planning to see her, so he hugs her and kisses her, trying to comfort her the best way he can. It is not enough, but it is all that he has left to give her.

In the past he had been hurt. Now, he is the one hurting and that makes him feel like a villain. Yet he sees no other way. The urge to leave is too great to be fought against and even if he could fight it, he wouldn’t, for his spirit is eager to wonder the world in search of the answers to the questions that now assault his mind more violently than never. 

                The Traveller is Listening to:

Heartbreaker (Led Zeppelin, 1969)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq_sCDYCGwU&feature=related

X - The Departure

 

Leonardo wakes up to the sound of the alarm clock ringing, and has to hit the snooze button three times until he can finally gather the strength to finally get out of bed. Then the hot shower helps him to wake up; he enjoys the feeling of the warm torrent of water falling on top of him, the water drops sliding down his back, the steam that permeates the room. He also enjoys the sound of the water descending in its constant rhythm, keeping the outside world at bay. He’s alone with his thoughts, which today are numerous and intense.

He gets out of the shower and dries himself off with his blue towel. Then he shaves his beard and brushes his teeth. While he puts on his blue jeans and a black T-shirt, he also starts to pack his bags. The truth is, there isn’t that much to pack since besides for his laptop and a Swiss army knife Leonardo doesn’t have any personal belongings. He throws those two items in his big traveller backpack along with some clothing a couple of novels: Jack Kerouac’s On The Road and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

When the packing is done he looks around the semi-empty bedroom one last time before he leaves. A few posters hanging up on the walls are the only visible things of his left. One is an image of Batman encircled by bats, watching over his beloved city, Gotham. The other is an image of another super-hero, Spider-Man the web crawler, slinging his webs over Manhattan’s skyscrapers. An inscription says: ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ The third poster reminds him of the day he met Jean-Pierre, it’s an image of Professor X and his X-Men. The fourth poster shows a smiley Tyler Durden holding a soap bar with the letters Fight Club inscribed in it. On the upper left corner of the image black letters spell ‘Use soap’. The last poster, the biggest of all, is a map of the world. That was always his favorite one.

He walks through the city one last time taking in the morning breeze at each step. As he sees them, he silently says goodbye to the places that defined his experience as a student in Leeds: The Eldon, his favorite pub; The Parkinson Steps, the most famous building on campus and rendezvous point to its students; or The Light, the mall where he hung out with his friends so many times.

As he finally enters the coach station he immediately checks the departures noticeboard. ‘Gate nº3’ it says. So he walks towards it with decisive pace until, unexpectedly, he sees a girl with big amber eyes waiting by the gate starring at him intensively. He stops for a second, unsure of what to do and then, without knowing how else react, he starts walking towards her. As he gets closer, he realizes that she is crying.

‘What are you doing here?’ He asks, surprised.

‘I… I talked to Jean-Pierre. He didn’t wanna say anything but I squeezed it out of him. I had to see you before you left.’

‘…Why?’

‘Because I love you.’

‘…’

‘Please don’t go. Or… or go, but at least tell me where you’re going and tell me that you’re coming back. At least give me some hope.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Please… tell me something at least.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Leonardo turns his back on her and walks away. ‘It’s not fair!’ She cries at him. He wishes he could turn around and face her glance but he isn’t capable of doing so. He doesn’t want to see the tears dropping down her cheeks or her expression of sadness, mixed with anger. So he doesn’t turn around and, step after step, she becomes more distant. He hopes that she can find the strength to forget him.

            He goes into the bus and as he does so he looks back one last time, only to see that she’s not there anymore, she’s gone forever. 

            As the bus moves further and further away from Leeds deeper into the English countryside, Leonardo nests deeper in the leather seat, thoughts and feelings racing up and down his mind.

            He searches in his backpack for one of the two novels that he brought along. He has read them both countless times over, but now both seem more relevant than ever.

            The relevance of Kerouac’s defining work is too obvious to be explained. Huxley’s masterpiece reminds him of how his generation inherited a society governed by the pursuit of pleasure, full of people wishing to be entertained in order to fill the voids in their boring, repetitive, every-day lives. Yet his fingers finally come across an even more pertinent volume, a brand new notebook. It’s a moleskin notebook with horizontal lines, white pages and a black hard cover. The kind frequently used by Hemingway in the early-twentieth century Parisian streets and cafes. It’s the notebook of a writer begging to be filled up with words. He decides to grant it its wish and, after pulling a pen from his pocket he writes:

Traveller’s Log. First entry: The Departure.

                 

Ahead lies the road to the unknown. A mysterious destiny awaits me at it’s end. I do not know what I will find. I don’t even know exactly what I’m looking for. Yet, this “thing” burns deep inside my chest. I cannot ignore this urge that drives me away from safe shores. It’s my fate to wonder, it is my nature to be a wanderer. Like a Samurai without a master, I’m a citizen with no country. I don’t belong anywhere except here, on the road. Behind lies safety, friendship, maybe even love. I leave behind me the ones that I care for and the place that was my home for so long. Yet this is not my choice, it is nature at work. It is the animal inside me.  End of the first entry.

The Traveller is Listening to:
Despair in the Departure Lounge (Arctic Monkeys, 2006)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLS8ffCYN80