deartraveller

Dear Erica,

So good to know you're reading Shakespeare! It appers to me that all that talk I gave you about reading all the best authors while you can is finally paying off!

I presented you with that title because you made me think a lot about your methaporic interpretation of Shakespeare's excerpt ( which I, by the way and in case you had doubts (just kidding), do know ) and lead me to create my own.

As we started this journey we had as maing goals to discover what we wanted to do with our lives, professionally and personally. You've already found out what you want to do with the professional side and I'm on the verge to discover if my personal side of life is about to take a spin. With this said I present you my interpretation of the different stages of life that William Shakespeare set about 400 years ago.

All the world is a journey. All the men and women move in different ways, have ( as Shakespeare said ) «their exits and entrances» and «one man in his time» uses a large variety of means of transportation. I think you can see where this is going.

The first stage is when we are newborns. We are not able of locomote on our own so we have the baby stroller that allow us to move from the cradle to the baby care seat and to perform the two main functions of that time: eat and sleep. (God knows how I miss those days).

On the second stage we already know how to walk, we are children, with all the love and also terror that the word carries, but since our legs are still kid size our parents will introduce us to the trycicle and bycicle's world. We learn how to ride them and from that time on we no longer need help to go wherever we want, inside the limits of neighbourhood. We are starting to make it on our own.

Third stage and teenagers, both start with the same letter and with this letter also begins the word 'three' which represents the three means of transportation more often used by them : bus, subway and the more or less common scooter. With the 'teen' age comes the wanting of freedom and by riding alone from one place to another (school-home, home-school), using their own money (actually given by their parents disguised as allowance) they feel grown enough to also take the bus to hang out with friends on places more and more far from home, starting then to taste freedom.

But they eventually reach the age of the car and the so wanted independence. You can go wherever you want, do as many journeys as you want and the sky is the limit. You only depend on the gas money, which is finally provided by your first or second job.

Reaching the fourth stage, the after-college one, ( our brilliant and inspiring stage ) we get aware of the environmental problems of the planet and after contributing with our fair share of corbon dioxide with the car we realize it's time to take a plain and get a more up-to-date notion of the world, rediscovering ourselves and the world, or try to actually find ourselves.

The fifth stage, after seeing the world, is when we realize that we still have a lot of years left to work in a cubicle and, as you said it my dear friend, get surrounded by tons of paperwork, since the 30's till the 50's/55's. The sad part is that we actually do it! What a bummer, I know!! The late night hours will necessarily and without any escape drag us to the taxi option and no perfect parking spot will change our minds when it comes to change the discomfort of getting behind the wheel to face a crazy 7:00 am traffic for the oportunity of being able to put on some mascara, read one more time an important presentation or have a complete and calm breakfest as heading to work. But we can still look with hope to retirement...

Or not... we will be welcomed to the sixth stage with a short retirement and most likely (considering the quality of the air, the stressful lifestyle and the not so healthy eating habits) with the return of help to locomote. A wheelchair or a cane will now be our new best-friends, right after our husbands of course (I think Gabriel is trying to run for the title), imposing barriers to the hardly conquered freedom and the visits to far monuments and trips with no more than a map and a bagpack will no longer suit us and our mean of transport.

Which leads us to the seventh and last stage : When we become to old to appreciate all the things that happen faster then a walk in the park and to old to ride in anything else than an ambulance. Accidents happen more often and despite we keep saying 'I'm fine on my own' our loved and younger ones will start earing 'I can't do it on my own, please help me'.

I'm not saying that this will happen to us and I actually really really hope not! As you said, I'll also try by any means to avoid this ending, but you know how life is... unexpected and full of surprises!

Anyway what really matters is getting to spend it with the ones that matter the most, so I'm on my way to meet my mother in London, if you want to I can ask her to come with your mother also and we could all go watch Shakespeare's 'As You Like It'. Let me know how far you are and maybe we can meet again.

Love,

Sara.

Dear Sara,

As I’m sitting here on this bench waiting for the train I’m suppose to catch, I decided to write you about this book I’m reading to speed up time: “As you like it”, from the one and only William Shakespeare.

There was a particular passage that got my attention, the one that starts with that famous sentence “All the world's a stage”, you know it right? Well, as I read it I couldn’t help to compare what he wrote to what I’m experiencing right now.

All the world’s a train station, and man and women are merely travelers. Just like a moving train, they have their stays and their stops throughout their lives, and one man in his time travels all around.

We can describe our life journey in seven stops: at first the eager child, eager to leave his mom’s nap and discover the world for the first time. Then, the trapped teenager, with his loud music and alternative looks, who believes to be hold back by his over protective family and doesn’t have enough freedom. And then the early 20’s, the age to look incredibly stunning, go out, laugh out loud, love for the first time, commit every mistake and start discovering all the world’s incredible things. The late 20’s bring us the fresh worker, excited at first with the new office and tasks but without time to fit trips in his new schedule. With the 30’s comes the mature worker, seeking for recognition, with his everyday routine and who takes about two/three weeks a year to see a different country. It is the age of learning the lessons from the mistakes of the 20’s. And then the 40’s and followers, the age to pay for the drinks! It’s when you realize you’re not getting any younger and think: “I still have so much to see!” and go on a spree trying to make up for the working years and start paying attention to every little thing in life. Later on, the elderly traveler, tired and (I hope) full of life experiences to remember. It’s when the back ache kicks in, so the proper age to take a break from travelling, sit back and tell our story to our grandchildren: tell them about what we saw, how happy it made us. Hopefully it will inspire them to follow our footsteps and go discover the world for themselves someday too.

Actually, I never want to stop travelling the world, but I know it will come the day when I will be in an office surrounded by paperwork instead of road maps, but I‘m telling you, when that day comes, I will turn my back on it, go to the nearest train station and catch the first train. Then I will travel until my feet can no longer bear it. And I truly hope to have you always by my side in this, the most important journey of all: our own lives.

My train just got here. I’ll write you later telling you everything about the place I’m headed. I’m missing you a lot.

Love,

Érica.

My dear Erica,

What an amazing week we had! Thank you so much for coming to Virginia and for bringing along your new friends, they were all so amanzingly nice and had so much to tell and to teach us about this adventure we entered on.

I noticed you loved the beach and it was really hard for me to say goodbye to you, but the journey has to continue and I noticed I wasn't leaving you in bad company. ( Yes, I noticed that special friend of yours ).

On my way back from Virginia Beach, wich I'll deeply miss, I saw a French movie with Gabriel that he named as one of the most amazing movies of his life. I got so curious ( OK, I'll admit it, at first it was just because I wanted to know him better ), that before we choose where to go next we went to the movies to see it and The Intouchables automaticly became the movie of my life!

The film relates the development of the unlikely friendship between Philippe, a wealthy quadriplegic, and Driss, a young black and poor man from the ghettos. Philippe, who owns a luxurious Parisian mansion, and his assistant Magalie, are interviewing candidates to be his live-in carer. Driss, who lives in a bleak Parisian suburb, a candidate, has no ambitions to get hired. He is just there to get a signature showing he was interviewed and rejected in order to continue to receive his welfare benefits. 

The next day, Driss returns to Philippe's mansion and learns, to his surprise, that he is on a trial period for the live-in carer job. He learns the extent of Philippe's disability and then accompanies Philippe in every moment of his life, discovering with astonishment a completely different lifestyle. A friend of Philippe's reveals Driss's criminal record which includes six months in jail for robbery. Philippe states he does not care about Driss's past as long as he does his current job properly. Over time, Driss and Philippe become closer and gradually, Philippe is led by Driss to put some order in his private life, including being more strict with his adopted daughter Elisa, since his wife died without giving him any children, who behaves like a spoiled child with the staff. Driss discovers modern art, opera, art, and even learns how to paint.

I think you see how this goes from now on. Despite being so close, Philippe understands that Driss has to take care of his cousins and dismisses him, although his moral is very low on the following times has he's not abble of finding a suitable replacer. Driss becomes aware of this and takes Philippe to a small trip. They arrive at a restaurant with a great view of the ocean, but Driss suddenly leaves the table and says good luck to Philippe for his lunch date. Philippe does not understand, but a few seconds later Eleonore, a woman with whom he had established an epistolary relationship, just talking on the phone and by letter, arrives. Philippe looks outside and sees Driss through the window, smiling at him.

I was in need of a good laugh provided by good company and the movie was a relaxing breth of fresh air. The night I saw this story happening, became exactly what I needed!

At a certain point in our lives we think we are unbeatable, certain values fade away and the notion of having our feet well placed on earth slightly vanishes. The notion that some people have their feet way to buried on earth and others are floating through the clouds was given to me by this movie in a light, comic, and most of all, real way. It was an eye opening film, as it taught me how to rely on the most unexpected people and that sometimes help, love and friendship can come as a result of the most unexpected situations. 

Two worlds, two men and two tottaly different ways of facing life became one and then .. became untouchables.

What is your 'movie of a lifetime' ?

As I'm almost weping I'll say goodbye now. ( Gabriel is getting worried, he thinks I spend too much time on the computer ... how sweet!! ) Please write to me soon and tell me where are you heading next!

Missing you like crazy,

Sara.

Dear Sara,

I had so much fun this week we spent together! Virginia is such a great place to go on vacation: the ocean, the heat, the soft sand… I will certainly recommend it to my parents for a second honeymoon! You won’t believe how many pictures we took: eight hundred! At least fifty of those are of that night when Gabriel fell asleep earlier and we spent the entire time putting toothpaste in his hair (I can’t stop laughing just remembering his face in the morning). I miss you both already! By the way, you will be glad to know that I thought Gabriel was a really nice guy, he’s is approved by me!

Well, after such an exhausting week of endless fun with you, the plans for this night were a bit calmer: some popcorn, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and one of my favorite films “A Time to kill” from 1996 based on John Grisham’s best-selling novel. I don’t know if you ever saw it, but if you never did you won’t believe what you’re missing! What a cinema masterpiece!

Summing up the plot, the movie portrays the story of Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson), a Mississippi blue-collar worker, who has his world turned up-side-down when two men brutally assaulted his ten-year-old daughter. In the deep South, at the time, black men were strongly discriminated against, so, fearing the men will not receive justice, Carl Lee takes the law into his own hands and murderers them. He then turns to an eager and idealistic young laywer, Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey, I know you love his work!) for his defense and an energetic law student (Ellen Roark, played by Sandra Bullock) volunteers to help him in the case.

I just fell in love with this movie! It was one of the things that made up my mind about going to law school so I can definitely say that it changed my life. The passion with which Jake defends Carl Lee in court it’s just overwhelming. They are so different from each other and yet Jake looks past trough the stereotypes and helps him anyway, despite the constant threats he receives. Almost in the end of the film, when he thought all hope of saving Carl Lee was lost, he made a speech that I will never forget (I know it’s long but it’s worth reading):

“I want to tell you a story. I'm going to ask you all to close your eyes while I tell you the story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves. (…) This is a story about a little girl walking home from the grocery store one sunny afternoon. I want you to picture this little girl. Suddenly a truck races up. Two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field and they tie her up and they rip her clothes from her body. Now they climb on. First one, then the other, raping her, shattering everything innocent and pure with a vicious thrust in a fog of drunken breath and sweat. And when they're done, after they've killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to have children, to have life beyond her own, they decide to use her for target practice. They start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw them so hard that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones. Then they urinate on her. Now comes the hanging. They have a rope. They tie a noose. Imagine the noose going tight around her neck and with a sudden blinding jerk she's pulled into the air and her feet and legs go kicking. They don't find the ground. The hanging branch isn't strong enough. It snaps and she falls back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck and drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge. Pitch her over the edge. And she drops some thirty feet down to the creek bottom below. Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white.”

That is what I want to do for my life! I want to help those who need me, I want to stand up in front of a jury and fight for what I believe in. Give a speech just as heartwarming as this, so that people would listen closely to every word of it. This movie has taught me that despite any difference human beings may have, we are all equal in the eyes of justice, and that justice leads us to a better world, and a better world is a cause worth fighting for! It showed me that trough commitment, determination and hard work, a fair trial can be heard, regardless of race, even in a country drowned in racial prejudice.

The truth is that this night may have been one of the most important of my journey through the world. I mean, deciding what I want to do was one of the reasons why I came in the first place. I may have discovered my future… Can you imagine me as a lawyer? Well, I can.

I hope you will find what you’re looking for too. I’ll meet you again soon!

Love,

Érica.

My dearest Sara,

First of all, I can’t believe how cute your friend is! I’m so jealous! You have to invite him to visit our town so I can meet him too and please if you are truly my best friend… MARRY HIM! Just kidding (but seriously, he looks like he was photoshoped!).

Well, speaking of other matters, what you said about Queen Elizabeth left me very curious too. I rented the movie and there was a particular speech of Walter Raleigh telling of his adventures that got my attention:

“Can you imagine - can you feel - what it is to cross an ocean? For weeks you see nothing but the horizon. All round you. Perfect, and empty. Your ship is small - tiny - a speck in such immensity.    

You live with fear, in the grip of fear - fear of storms, fear of sickness on board, fear of the immensity. What if you never escape? How can you escape? There's nowhere to go. So you must drive your fear down, deep into your belly, and study your charts, and watch your compass, and pray for a fair wind - and hope. Pure naked fragile hope, when all pure senses scream at you, Lost! Lost! Imagine it. Day after day, staring west, the rising sun on your back, the setting sun in your eyes, hoping, hoping.

At first it's no more than a haze on the horizon, the ghost of a haze, the pure line corrupted. But clouds do that, and storms. So you watch, you watch. Then it's a smudge, a shadow on the far water. For a day, for another day, the stain slowly spreads along the horizon, and takes form - until on the third day you let yourself believe. You dare to whisper the word - land!

Land. Life. Resurrection. The true adventure. Coming out of the vast unknown, out of the immensity, into safe harbor at last. That - that - is the New World.”

Isn’t it incredible? This description simply took my breath away. I was enraptured with such deep and meaningful words. Suddenly I wasn’t here in 2012, I went back in time and found myself on a ship, heading to the unknown. I consider myself an explorer since I’m travelling around the world with nothing but a bag pack and a map, but can you image how it would be to go on a journey like this? The feeling of adventure, not knowing what you are going to find, how many days left to find it. The fear of end up not finding anything at all or the excitement of finding a bit of paradise here on Earth. The unavoidable doubt: how is it like? Is it even real? Or just a product of a mad man’s imagination? Is it an inhabited place or just desert land waiting for us to discover it?

I can’t help thinking that travelling is not so exciting now, I mean, it really is wonderful visiting other countries, meeting new people, experiencing new things, but the boring part is that we already know where we are going to. The possibility of just getting on board of a ship and set sail to the horizon with no direction and hope to find something never seen before is nothing but a dream now. Everything has been discovered already and that leaves me thinking that the world has become a smaller place. Or if not smaller, more empty. Don’t you agree?

I was really surprised to find out that Virginia was named after the “Virgin Queen”, it’s funny, in its way. I searched for pictures of “Virginia beach” online and it really is beautiful there. Besides, you know I can’t resist a nice beach like that! So don’t leave just yet, I’m going to meet you! I already bought the plane tickets! I guess I won’t have to wait for you to bring Gabriel to our town after all! Some of the friends I made here in India agreed to go with me so I won’t be going alone!

I hope I find a cute friend like yours during the flight! I miss you a lot and can’t wait to see you!

Love,

Érica.

Dear Erica,

 As I was leaving Africa, my dad sent me an email. He was so impressed with my new tan that he wrote and I quote « you passed from Queen Elizabeth ( that queen we studied on the 12th grade which was very very pail ) « to Naomi Campbell! » ( the supermodel of Afro-jamaican descent).

As you can imagine this sentence made my day, but it also made me curious, so I stopped in the airport and before I decided where to go next I watched the movie ' Elizabeth : The Golden Age '. I hardly knew that inside this movie was my next destination!

 There's a character that personifies the real finder of Virginia, named Walter Raleigh (1584), that explores the so called 'New World' and he is the one that baptized Virginia.

On behalf of the Queen, he explored the american coast and claimed the region from South Caroline untill Maine to the United Kingdom and named this immense area 'Virginia', because of the Queens's epithet 'The Virgin Queen'. It was expected that she would marry and produce an heir so as to continue the Tudor line, but she never did and as she grew older, she actually became famous for her virginity. (Weird ...)

Well after all this new discovers I think you can guess where I'm heading ... Virginia Beach! There was a boy seated right next to me and after a short chat I realized he is also going to Virginia Beach so I learned all of this : every year the city hosts the East Coast Surfing Championships as well as the North American Sand Soccer Championship and it is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having the longest pleasure beach in the world!

So please try to visit me there, you know how much you love sun and sand girl!

Missing you a lot and with a very nasty backache due to the hours I've spent seated watching the movie, answering to you and to my dad and talking with Gabriel, I'll be waiting for your answer and hopefully your visit.

Love, Sara

P.S: I know you got curious about Gabriel so guess what ? ... He's just like Brenton Thwaites!!

The Virgin Queen

First place I want to visit.

Gabriel saying 'Hi' to you!