I write from a hotel room in Miami, FL.
I've spent my day of travel and subsequent afternoon in a sleepy state of vegetarian-pizza-eating reading and relaxation, browsing the internet, catching up on email and repeatedly falling asleep. I've also been listening to David Bowie's "Space Oddity" with an uncanny sense of identification-- maybe its that floating in a "tin can" part (American Airlines kind of looks that way?) or perhaps its the "feeling very scared" but your spaceship knowing which way to go, so you go with it?
This is my third Clinton Global Initiative University gathering. In 2008, I made my first commitment to work on CLP.
But really, that commitment had been made in India, on long bus rides and international dormitories where I felt like a Grade-A-Bump-On-A-Pickle. But, an observational pickle-- one aware of the potential of transnational action that could take place, if said pickle were willing to risk.
Like, for example, Major Tom!
After one day here, I will be "floating in tin can" to Connecticut. I've never been to that part of the USA before-- a more "radical" journey (if you'll allow this) than going to India. In fact, planning this trip was far more intimidating than planning any of my CLP trips to India! Why is my own country, sometimes, so unfamiliar and big and intimidating? Is it us or is it me? When I step into India, I feel like I enter a world of "Annas" and "Akkas" (brothers and sisters)-- why not here? Or maybe it is less explicit?
Probably the latter. Today, as I checked in to my hotel, a friendly front desk clerk, Alfonso, hooked me up with my vegetarian pizza. And the driver, an older gentleman from francophone Africa, got lost WITH me as we discovered my California accent and his West African accent confused both of us, and we were both (simultaneously) "too polite" to check with one another again. After ending up in a neighborhood of pink and baby blue houses and palm trees, we pulled over, read the directions and realized his "1800 SW" was my "8200 SW". Laughing, I said "Well! C'est la vie!" to which he replied, "You speak French!?"
En peu?
And even though, by the end of it, his meter read "$50"-- he charged me $35, and we said "goodbye" to one another in a flurry of apologies and smiles for the linguistic confusion.
As of Saturday morning, right at the stroke of midnight, I'll be at the Global Health and Innovation Conference at Yale for the rest of this weekend, sponsored by Unite for Sight. I've been scrolling through the presentations and participants, highlighting names and reading webpages to get an idea of the folks I need to hunt down, "court and woo," and learn with. I attend this conference by myself, as Sydney and Rachel stay at Clinton Global Initiative and continue forward in recruiting and connecting with other college students eager to get connected to something real.
Its 12:26 AM on Friday in Miami and I'm restless. Restless with energy to move, to read, to meet. Restless in my desire to fall into a deep, mountainous sleep. I mean mountainous in that timeless, slow-moving, granite way. I want to sleep, literally, like a rock...
... but that will wait. Or it will come in pieces. And I'll make a mosaic of rest and restlessness.
More on that later. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LVC9eW9Q4E
No comments:
Post a Comment