Travel as a concept unto itself, is wonderful; to sample another life, to experience sights and sounds and feels and tastes outside the ordinary confines of your life. To dream, to envision, to have, to breathe in deeply an existence that is yours, but for a brief moment.
Unconsciously, I admit, I dream of finding home. A place where I am not a fish out of water. A stranger in a strange land. Insert your favorite cliche here.
In short: an environment in which I am not a perpetual foreigner.
As someone who has, at times, felt rather out of place even at Gallaudet, I think it’s fair to say that I have never quite felt at home anywhere. The closest I had come was Prague, and even then, it was a dream I held in my hands, and the dream, I knew, was more lovely than the reality could be.
When I travel, when I fly, the best I can hope for is to be invisible, to not get any hassle, to be able to order my meals and my beverages. To need to deal with others as little as possible.
And if I must absolutely deal with others? That they be kind, have a pen handy, and not treat me any differently than others.
It’s so little, what I ask.
At O’Hare, I had to talk to the agent at the gate. I asked that I be allowed to write out what I wanted. I was refused twice, with the agent saying I should just tell him what I wanted. That I understood his refusal was just luck. I’ve nothing against people with accents, it’s just a simple fact that accents, particiularly foreign ones, make normally barely comprehensible English lipreading pretty much incomprehensible.
And besides, I’d asked to communicate via pen and paper. I wish I understood the resistance to clear communication, the insistence that I try to muddle through on their terms, in situations where perhaps I would know how best to communicate.
It happens all the time.I get tired of the little annoyances, of the unpredictibility of how people will respond to me. I am never different, but the responses are. If I must choose, I would prefer to be one in a middle of a crowd of people, anonymous, unnoticed, not singled out.
Not walked up to and called specifically to board first because people without ears need help boarding. Not touched reassuringly while being talked to by strangers. Not being stared at as I stow my items, not helpfully being manhandled whilst being told I need to turn Benkei off. People mean well. But these assumptions, these responses, they remind me I am not seen for the person I am.
And in that moment, the safety of the anonymous traveler persona I’d cultivated, fragile and beautiful and comfortable, is shattered.
All because I’d opened my hands and asked for pen and paper.
