befriending boredom and the little fox

i began to fear, as we followed our congenial mountain - mannish thick-accented guide through the city of Pecs, viewing assundry art museums and craft museums and cathedrals and roman ruins, that i was growing bored of the whole thing. the whole experience. that everything being said all the nuances described in detail. the narratives and explanations became melodic lullabies lulling me to sleep in wooden pews. suddenly this idea. that i was disinterested in this place that was very interesting, began to frighten me. i feared that anywhere i went this indifference would follow me, and swallow me, and slowly lull me into complacency.

but perhaps there is a limit to the awe and inspiration a body can take in such a short time.

before each cathedral becomes less real than the last. and each step is merely foot to stone.

it was with great joy that i heard my colleagues expressing similar sentiments. perhaps we are sponges saturated with stimulus. for how wonderful it was yesterday to simply hike through the woods in the buda hills. thinking of little. being lectured on less. simply breathing clean air and walking a path that is always familiar, always new.

and how refreshing was today. on the farms. watching hungarian horsemen perform their show. cracking whips above horses heads. riding standing driving eight horses. and the bread and the feast. and playing soccer in the grass and dust until we were covered in dirt and tired enough to sleep all the way back on the bus.

and we are at last back to the drawing board. so to speak. yesterday we drew drapery and i wanted little more than to break my board over my knee and leave. to get a construction worker to take a jackhammer to this enormous knot in my back. but what doesnt kill us... yada yada.

* * *

allow me explain to you a little of the utter excrutiating crushing humiliation of being lost. multiplied tenfold in a city you dont know in a language you dont know. and how it quite reduces you to quite stupid and helpless child. perhaps i exaggerate. for when it is over it seems like nothing. for the story has a happy ending. once in prague, i was walking home alone. in a village that quickly grew much larger than my memory had allowed. and though i searched my memory and my pockets, i could not dig up and address or a phone number, or any memory of which road to take. and so i wandered for an hour in the district that i recognized, hoping that miraculously a golden road would appear. and it did not. in the depth of my despair, in my rage and swearing, i see two figures, like angels, that i think i recognize, sauntering up a path. and as they approach my hope is fulfilled for it is none other than john and cameron. despite their jeering and mockery, i profess i have never been more glad to meet anyone in my life.

the second time was today. though much less severe or prolonged. it was the fear of being left behind. like the child lost in JCPenney. Only there was no front desk with a receptionist with a loud speaker. Only Hungarians, moving moving talking talking in words i did not know. and i cursed, why could they not wait another effing 3 minutes. i retraced our steps but eventually it became apparent that they had not gone the way we had come. and then what. they be long gone now. so i went back to the store where i bought that stupid hand carved bird. surely they would send someone back to find me. i asked an english speaking music student if she had seen a group of americans pass that way. she had not. then i looked back and just at the end of the street was dr ungar. i ran up to meet him. though i knew he would be furious.

but he wasnt as mad as i had feared.

anyway i probably am making a big deal out of nothing. but all that to say it doesnt seem like not a big deal. it torments me this thought of being lost, truly lost. im a little fox and it hounds me.

perhaps you will ask me then, nathan why would you go tramping around in a country youve never been in a language youve never spoken, for a month? ALONE?! if this fear torments you so.

and i will reply, my friend that is precisely why.