After more than a year of pandemic lockdowns, travel finally opened up again in summer, 2021. Before Leon started preschool, we headed out on our first-ever trip as a family. Here’s a missive to him I wrote that night as the sun went down over San Diego Bay:
June 25, 2021
Dear Leon,
Today was a momentous day for you, at least in the life and worldview we hope to impart: your very first airplane trip. It’s only the first leg of a bigger journey, and it’s just to an overnight stopover still in the same state we live in, you were born in, and have yet to leave (though if all goes as planned that’ll be changing tomorrow).
Sometimes I wonder if you’ll wonder why travel is so big to us both, to your Daddies. On the surface, it seems kind-of pointless, right? Emitting all this carbon into the atmosphere (something that’s a big issue in our time and no doubt will be even bigger when you read this) to have logistical hardships (lost luggage, missed flights, you name it) to only temporarily visit places that have been photographed, rendered, and discussed innumerable times. Why bother?
I’m already hopeful that you know what the better answer is.
I say that, because, as I see it, travel provides that vital, personality-augmenting effect on one’s brain that practically nothing else can give. The feel of another place. The smells, the different light, the people going by. No two places are alike, and you can never really see it all. That’s what makes every experience in a different place from where you live a vital, arresting fragment of existence.
But still, there’s something the endless categorizers and taxonomies of the human persona point out: some people dig that, drink it in deep, let the air and aura of other lands fill, and broaden, their souls. They crave new experiences and hunger to learn from them. And then there are others, those for whom novelty triggers stress. Those for whom travel is viewed as an extravagance, a pointless errand, something both scary and not needed.
Since the day you were born I’ve wondered and worried: is Leon going to turn out like that?
Obviously, it’s not for me to say whether such a path is the best one for you. Nor do I believe that kids come out of the womb pre-cooked, with all their personality traits set for life. Believe it or not, such a view is still prevalent in our time. Sure, I’d rebut, there are some currents and dispositions that must come pre-loaded in our physiology. But what you do with them, how you nourish them, is equally if not more vital.
I saw it today when we got to the airport, then you stepped on your very first airplane—just a Regional Jet, to be sure, on a short-hop flight. Still, you demonstrated the trait that fills me with hope and that you’ve possessed since the moment I’ve known you: an unceasing curiosity and fascination about, well, everything. Watching you look out the airplane window as we were on approach to San Diego (a great first airport to arrive at, by the way, surrounded by buildings and city till the moment you land) was one of the more joyous moments we’ve shared in the twenty or so months you’ve been alive. I know that sound you make, a spirited squawk, whenever you see something you find great and fascinating.
You made that sound a lot today.
You’re not going to remember this trip. Too bad, since it marks a return to something: a reunion of our extended family, one I myself am still getting to know; a welcoming your grandparents to their new home base—though if their history is any indication, it won’t be their last (hint: they share the travel bug); and a return to the old life we all knew before this ludicrous plague took over the world only a few months after you emerged into life.
For me, though, that’s the biggest return of all: a return to exploring the world, to getting out there and having those new experiences so often cited in the writings of Frank Herbert, Mark Twain, and Anthony Bourdain. We’d been hoping to start this new, epic cycle in all our lives—traveling the world as a family—for some time now, and it’s my hope that this is, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, the beginning of a beautiful adventure.
Happy trails, kiddo.
Love,
Daddy David