As I sit here typing this I'm internally swaying back and forth. If you can believe it, I have sea legs. It would seem that my equilibrium, along with the rest of me, desires to be back out on the ocean. I could care less about Mexico. I'm a Navy Brat so honestly I could care less about seeing the beaches. I grew up around them. But man! I want to be back on that ocean. Awe inspiring and powerful beyond imagination. Even the enormous floating hotel/casino I was on seemed like nothing upon the Sea's great expanse. I miss going on deck and reading, praying, or even just staring. I loved it. It puts your life into its proper perspective to know how small and truly insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things. So until the land catches up with me, every time I cut a zig-zag walking across the floor, grab the side of the sink for stability, or close my eyes and feel myself gently rocking to and fro, I will remember. And though its a bit of a nuisance, I will miss it when its gone, because it means I'm that much further away from where I was.
My favorite part of the voyage, aside from time with my Mom, the Mayan history I learned, and the relaxation I enjoyed, was the crew members I met. So many people from so many places. I lived in the Philippines as a child so I had fun talking to the Filipinos, but mostly I loved all the Eastern Europeans I met. Granted I'm dying to go to Europe and I'm sure that played heavily into my prejudice, but they were awesome. So friendly and eager to talk and share themselves and their country with me.
I felt proud to be an American again as I heard about their desire to come here. To make a better life for themselves and their families. It redefined the term "American Dream" for me. What once felt like a bad word (or words) now has new meaning. The house, cars, and 2.5 kids is not the American Dream, its these people. People who come here looking for the opportunities and advantages that we Americans so often take for granted or forget about.
They struggle and work hard to try and attain what we have handed to us, so they appreciate it more. Its amazing the work ethic and drive that they can have to get what they seek. It comes as no surprise to me that 1st generation immigrants make up a significant percentage of this country's millionaires. They aren't spoiled as we can be. They don't feel that they "need" things. Things that to us feel necessary but to them are considered luxuries. So they work hard, save, and do well. That is what this country is about, its what's "good" about capitalism. The people who come here can work hard, live simply, and rise above the rest of us who live our lives on borrowed income and the feeling that we "deserve" something we haven't earned yet. Getting to know them was refreshing.
All that said, as visions of Ellis island and the words, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," run through your mind I have to say it makes me want to move to Europe all the more. I feel that part of appreciating anything about this country is living apart from it. I want to give myself and my children perspective. I want them to know the world at large so they can have a global mindset and not feel isolated by the American Imperialism that I grew up with and struggle to overcome in my own life and thinking. So as I overcome my sea legs and miss being aboard a ship surrounded by an ocean and 56 different nationalities of people, I make plans. I look up plane tickets to another continent. One yet to be visited by me. My darling Europe.
I feel a grief and sadness for it. Its like being homesick for some place I've never even been. I have felt this before, for California and San Francisco. Before I'd ever laid eyes on the place I had the same longing to go there. Now that I have, and lived there twice, my feelings for the city by the bay remain just as strong and loving as before I'd lived there, only now they have the history to justify them. This gives me hope. Hope that I may say the same for Europe some day. Years after going there and living there I can recall these emotions I'm having now and remember that they were a premonition of things to come, a driving force within my heart and soul to bring me there. May it be so!
Now though I've expanded my European views to include the Eastern bits. Something I hadn't considered before but now seem to me a part of the whole. I hope to see Serbia, Romania, and Macedonia. To learn and be apart of the intense history of those places as well. I'd love to travel to this little known corner of the world and walk the streets of countries most Americans have never heard of (that is unless we had meddled in a war there before and heard about it that way). But there is so much more to those places. Places that once had Empires, early writing systems, and a history all there own that pre-dates ours 1000s of years. Castles and first century churches with paintings of Christ done by someone who might have actually laid eyes on him. As a country we are so young and so proud. Perhaps our youth is what makes us so proud. Like a teenager who thinks they know everything, we baulk at the wisdom of older places that can actually say, "been there, done that." Our history is a speck upon their time-lines yet we feel so superior to them. How can it be?
Special thanks and shout-outs to Hari from Macedonia, Alex from Romania, Nicolae from Romania, Aleksandra from Serbia, and Wieny from the Philippines.
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