ask not what this country can give to you

So, when travelling to a new place in the states, or even when going into a new store, I have often had a feeling of hesitancy. Of being a foreigner. Of wondering who I'm going to offend by going in the wrong direction or getting the rules wrong. "They will all laugh at you!" 

Now, when travelling to a new country, there is the expectation of difference. There is the knowledge that as soon as I open my mouth, I'm going to be heard to be a foreigner, There's a kind of freedom in that. People don't expect me to fit in, so I don't have to? And I don't expect them to be what I'm used to, so the curiosity and exploring part is triggered already. 

However, in my latest travels, it's the strangest thing... there is no feeling of strangeness.  I still expect the names to be different, the words that fall upon my ears to be incomprehensible. But trees are trees. And the grass is green. There's gluten free things on the shelf, recycling to figure out, and the wine bottles are the same shape in this country as in the other. 

I realized that since this trip was more about my friends than it was about the country, I didn't come in with a desire to be dazzled or swept off my feet, or shown marvels. No fairy tale expectations. no secret yearnings of Hallmark moments or doorways to fairy lands, or discoveries by famous local musicians. This was never one of the "must see before I die" places of my heart. So there's a lot less riding on the visit.

And I also realized, this morning, that without that, that "wow me" setting turned on, I am interacting more freely with the environment. I am connecting and contributing? I am bringing myself to this country, as well as being a tourist in it. 

Truthfully, I am not acting much different here than I do at home - I am taking pictures of beautiful things, pausing to listen to birds and watch cats, admiring the clouds floating by, humming to the wind, touching trees and smiling at strangers. Maybe that's the thing. I am interacting as me, instead of holding myself apart, expecting to be amazed or dazzled or made a victim of.

And maybe that's the secret of any visit or interaction, with the known and unknown. "I gotta be me." And they will be they. And together, we will create a new being, a new moment, a new event, of us.