Complete Archives | Previous | Next

Stranger in a Strange Land Newsletter: August 2005

Dear Readers,
Eli Gerzon here: "My God, Stranger in a Strange Land!" Yes, exactly. Over the last few years I've chronicled my adventures through such distant lands as Holland, London, Bali, Berlin, the fjords of Norway, the temples of Japan, Seoul, and Osaka. But until a couple weeks ago I had never been to a major travel destination a mere hop, skip, and a jump away from my home of Boston: the Big Apple, Gotham City, Old New Amsterdam, NEW YORK CITY. My sister points out: "Eli, that's not that bigga deal." So she says. It's true most people reading this have been to New York themselves, I was only there for a few days, and it is just a short drive away. But it WAS an adventure and I did feel like a STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.

There's my excuse.... Since I started my solo travel in June, 2002 this has been my longest respite from travelling and writing. Prior to that Japan was my longest respite from home: eight months, from January to September, 2004. It took me a few months to fully recover physically from my illness (write in for more details if you missed it or other exciting SISL Newsletters!), but the emotional scars will last a lifetime... Seriously, I have really been trying to process my strange, stressful experience in Japan for the past several months and I have come to some understanding and maturity about the subject, I hope. I'll get into that later.

Regardless, for these past several months whenever people have asked me, "Any future travel plans?" I've answered simply, "Not right now." The wanderlust was out of me. I was content here in Boston watching the seasons change: we have four beautiful seasons here and I can't think of another place that matches them all. I've tried to keep my German and Japanese up but mainly worked on my Hebrew. I like languages, what can I say. I've been bashfully proud of my landscaping business: it's just a little business but I'm constantly in awe of the fact that enough old and new clients contact me every week for me to make a good living at something I enjoy. I'm darn thankful for it. They say I have a good reputation too.

The wanderlust is creeping back... The whispers are in my ear again, talking about far off lands, new languages, strange customs, and beautiful women. (I think they call that voice the "yetzer ha-ra" in Hebrew.) My mind has gone to many places but currently I am thinking about East Asia this fall. We'll see.

In the meantime New York was exciting: I heard fantastic drumming in Central Park, saw a farmer's market in Union Square, saw vendors lining the streets near Rockefeller Center, and enjoyed seeing Brooklyn's Jewish and black neighborhoods. And I honestly felt like I was in a different country a lot of the time. Maybe it's just because whenever I'm in a new city these last several years they're all been foreign cities. But also, there's just so much going on, so many different people that live there, let alone the millions that visit each day. A foreign friend said she didn't feel like a foreigner in New York. Maybe we felt equally a part of the strange city.

Also in the meantime, I try to look for opportunities to write and speak even if I'm not doing anything very exciting in far away places. I wrote an article for a homeschooling group about why I left school as a high school freshman so many years ago. It's very tongue and cheek, you'll love it:

http://www.ahem.info/ToSwinginaTree.htm

I'm also working on a novel about how I envision education looking in the future. It's not pretty... unless you're into that sort of thing. But actually the point of the story is that even if you are into THAT sort of thing, you wouldn't be into THIS sort of thing... I'll explain more later.

And about the Japanese thing too: I'll write more later. I still need to organize my thoughts on it. I like Japanese people, I really love a couple of them even. They can be sweet, fun, silly, generous, ingenious of course, and serious and determined. But they often have a lot of trouble just saying honestly what they're thinking and that makes me very scared! That's all I can say right now.

Feel free to e-mail me back. I'll try to send this thing out every month or so as I did in Japan. Some people have actually thought that I stopped sending it to them PERSONALLY, so it seems very important that I write these so as not to offend anyone. Feel free to forward it to other people so they don't feel offended either. Hmm, there may be a flaw in that logic but still feel free to forward to folk.

Take care,
Yours,

Eli Gerzon