The End

The buildings in London were so mismatched and colorful and it was so easy to squint, imagine no asphalt and no McDonald's signs, and see the city three hundred years ago. I knew that with a good enough jackhammer, you could go down into the past. London has strata, and I nestled happily into them like I was coming home.

I don't think a trip of this magnitude--temporal, geographical, personal--could be reflected on fully in a single blog post. The fragments will rise through over weeks and years, in the stories I tell, the ways I act, the art I make. The time away from home is ending, but the time that my historians will call "The Era of the Trip" is going to continue for a long while. I'll have to reintroduce myself to my surroundings, and this will be strange. I only recognize the boy who got on the plane to Heathrow because we live in the same body. I suppose I'm the next version of him--the next version of me. I seem to update every once in a while. Everybody does. This trip grew me so much. I fear it might be inexpressible, which isn't to say I won't try.

The Isle of Skye was my first run of taking care of myself, day and night, for a long enough period that I could, potentially, kill myself through neglect. Much to my delight, I survived me with nothing more serious than a chest infection. The island is a paradise, a mind-scorching exposed fracture in the world that has to be seen in pictures to be believed; in person it's far too real. I will certainly be back. I probably owe money to a man named Stuart. Not that I borrowed any money or met more than perhaps three guys named Stuart; it just seems likely on a place like Skye.

The nomadism that defined the next two weeks wrought me into a stoic traveler, a load-carrying, quietly sweating self-transport machine who learned to handle every travel issue with a screen of cool emotionlessness. The bus driver pretty much never got to me.

Glastonbury was one of the best weeks of my life. I wrote about 2,500 words a day in a room whose windows were curved so I was nearly surrounded by the famously magical countryside. One day I got up early enough to see the sunrise through the hilltop Tor. I participated in an extremely camp May Day festival. I met a man named Stuart.

Paris was the quickest two weeks, I think. Pleasant, beautiful, beggaring.

The rest of the trip ensued. You heard about it.

When I was very young, my brother was active in the Champlain Valley Union High School production of Pirates of Penzance. I think we saw the performance twice, and I haven't forgotten how smashing it was, nor how delightful to play with the toy cutlasses in the reception area, being the Pirate King, fighting the fiendish Mr Miskavage, who wielded a music stand, and I knew those evil smooth sharp things could hurt.

My brother had friends at CVU, and I met some of them. I remember the things I liked about his friends more than his friends themselves. In the intervening years, a sort of ideal friend appeared in my imagination. In high school or in college, I wanted to make friends with sort of tall, skinny boys with big smiles and baggy sweaters, boys who would joke about books and theater and always listen to you. Boys with rumpled hair. These were my ideal fellows, the ones who would go forth with me into whatever we were doing, walk around together, comment on the scenery. The kind of friends you'd find in a certain kind of contemporary YA novel.

As it happened, I didn't make long-term friends in high school, and generally found it easier to befriend girls. My brosephs (said ironically) didn't manifest.

I don't know if I'll find this very specific type of steampunk-academic friend in college--it no longer concerns me as much as it used to. On this trip, I've made friends with pretty much any type of person, and I've outgrown the need to look like my friends. In retrospect, it's pretty strange that I would create these strange holograms in my head.

A few days ago, I was getting dressed to go outside. Grey jeans, Doc Marten boots, a blue sweater, and the big floppy leather frock coat that has become a skin. I went to the bathroom for a drink from the sink and caught a look at myself: a man with tired but amused eyes, tufted busy hair, a baggy sweater, looking like he had seen some things. A guy you'd want to talk to in a dorm hall.

At the start of my trip, I liked talking to people but hated how it made me feel: self-conscious, always analyzing from some angle or another, feeling like the least interesting part of the conversation even when the other person was boring me immensely. I didn't like transport, and always felt shouted at by someone. I suspect I didn't like myself very much. Things have changed in these two months. I feel like an adult, but not in the way I always feared. I'm not trodden down, joyless, without imagination, all the things the worst grownups make you scared of when you see them. Instead, I see my life ahead of me: work, friends, college, more travel, whatever happens next (whether or not my writing career happens)--and I feel ready. I don't know if I've ever felt ready for a next step in my life before, but I am now. Eager, even.

And the change, I don't know how, is physical. In aspect, dress, and manner, I have transformed. I don't look like the nervous little boy anymore. I look like the friend I've always wanted.

Thank you to everyone, especially my parents who are kindly funding the last two days of the trip. (I have run out of my own money, lol.)