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Where Has the Magic Gone?

January 28, 2011 •

I’ve been wal­low­ing in nos­tal­gia for the past sev­eral evenings, a side ben­e­fit of prun­ing files, orga­niz­ing pho­tos, and reduc­ing clut­ter. When you’ve mar­ried into a fam­ily of pack rats, as I have, this is a never-end­ing chore. But it has its pecu­liar joys. (Think, Mar­cel Proust.)

While wad­ing through fam­ily records, I’ve redis­cov­ered travel doc­u­ments from my time as a stu­dent in Paris. They have trig­gered fond mem­o­ries, and led to shared sto­ries over din­ner and a glass of wine.

Now that so much of the world has gone dig­i­tal, some of the nos­tal­gic magic of for­eign travel has been lost. Does this imply our per­sonal his­to­ries will be less rich, less redo­lent of mem­o­ries trig­gered by old doc­u­ments?

Just look at my stu­dent visa, for exam­ple. The col­or­ful stamps, the dis­tinc­tive shapes of dif­fer­ent coun­tries’ imprints. The hand­writ­ten details. It’s a cul­tural arti­fact from the pre-dig­i­tal mod­ern era.

French-student-visa

Rhapsody in Blue

From the appear­ance of the orig­i­nal doc­u­ment, it’s clear that the French con­sular clerk was using a foun­tain pen to write my par­tic­u­lars on the visa. The style and color of the hand­writ­ten details are dis­tinc­tively French. When I lived in Paris, every­one used foun­tain pens; and almost all pen car­tridges were filled with the same shade of blue ink.

That per­va­sive shade of blue is inex­tri­ca­bly linked to that milieu, my stu­dent note­books, the peo­ple of that time and place. To the love let­ters I wrote my boyfriend, now hus­band, from Paris — writ­ten with a foun­tain pen that often bled through the flimsy air­mail sta­tionery. Let­ters that appeared dur­ing my “arche­o­log­i­cal dig” into our fam­ily files.

Despite the con­ve­nience of writ­ing on a key­board, com­puter-gen­er­ated doc­u­ments lack the mys­tique of those penned let­ters. The for­eign stamps, the sketches in the mar­gins.

And with today’s dig­i­tally scanned and recorded bor­der cross­ing pro­to­cols, my pass­port remains empty, no mat­ter how many trips I take. So it’s hard to remem­ber when I’ve trav­eled where…

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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