Love and the suitcase

Some of us are prone to wander. I wonder why.

It seems that every year, I depart for a new unknown. Foreign internships, study abroad and unadulterated travel are the historical signposts on my journey to adulthood. My passport is a jumbled scrapbook of stamps and visas, and my luggage wheels are worn down from years of trudging through snow, sand and asphalt.

Although my prior experience should allow me to claim professional traveler status, every trip makes me feel like an amateur. Each journey feels like the first summertime plunge off a diving board: cold and uncomfortable, performing in front of an audience of what feels like thousands. What’s more, the lingering hugs at airport departure gates don’t get easier with practice. I never understood precisely why I put myself through these sorts of paces on an annual basis.

Last week, I was running through the streets of Auckland, pumping Jay-Z through my headphones as my abused feet hit the pavement in their well-rehearsed rhythm. Without warning, the answer to my travel question appeared, self-evident and sickeningly sweet like a Hallmark card from an out-of-touch relative. I realized that I travel because it helps me find love.

My high school trip to China helped me find love for myself. An American Beauty I was not — at 16, I was pudgy, speckled with acne and permanently sporting slouchy rhinestone-studded jeans. I was hypersensitive to my exterior and astoundingly ashamed of my shell. When I arrived in Beijing, however, I discovered that the Chinese had a different take on what I had determined was a decidedly unappealing adolescence. My skin was not pasty but porcelain. My eyes were emerald, not muddy. My round face and absent cheekbones were a sign of class instead of a deviation from a universal ideal. After hearing it several times each day from onlookers and bystanders, I began to truly believe that I was not pudgy but “piào liàng” — beautiful.

Last summer in Ireland, I found love for an American back home. Our budding relationship was tenuous at best prior to my departure, but months later, I found myself infatuated. For three months, I counted the hours between glimpses at his pixelated face on my computer screen, devoutly interested in his daily minutiae. Through the perpetual pouring of rain, whiskey and stout, I yearned, not for home but for him. With the sweet warmth of August summertime came the final satisfaction of our Dulles Airport reunion, and we spent the weeks that followed drawing out languid summer days, thoroughly enjoying our mutual laziness.

This semester in New Zealand has nurtured a different sort of love. No boy at home greets me through images on my computer screen, and no love letters lie in my e-mail inbox. Sheer distance and a lack of technology even managed to sufficiently sequester me from the daily life of my family back home, forcing me to create a self-contained second existence in a new hemisphere. During the past five months, I have grown to love New Zealand itself, in all of its quirky, rugged iterations.

The people of New Zealand have an unparalleled respect for all things natural. They treat their environment with undiminished reverence, taking the time to understand and acknowledge everything from the struggle of the smallest fish up a stream to the sacrosanct movement of the tectonic plates. Their houses are small, their diets are local and their recycling bins are plentiful. Living sustainably is not a catchphrase but a necessary element of paying homage to their place of origin. I hope I take this part of New Zealand with me, as well, never allowing myself to forget that I am but a transitory guest on an enormous, undying, wild planet.

The casual ease with which Kiwis go about their lives is evident in everything the people of New Zealand produce, from their advertisements to their interactions on the street. The people of New Zealand treat each other with a unique combination of informality and respect, pleasantly chatting on the bus with strangers as if they had already decided a friendship would result. Several times each day, someone tells me, “No worries,” and living here has ensured that none ever arise in the first place. I hope to emulate the Kiwi spirit in my own life, making everyone I encounter feel comfortable and at ease.

Finally, the Kiwi harbors in his heart a quiet flame of pride, finding confidence in his own abilities while constantly looking to expand them. He is hardworking but unassuming, all heart and no pretense. Though he is loath to speak of it, he reflects on his neighbors and his home with a feeling that can only be described as a scrappy, earnest, wide-eyed sort of love. After spending the last semester here, I am certain I will take a piece of this love home with me, reflecting on my time in this remote, independent little powerhouse with nothing but gratitude and appreciation. Such love is the type of souvenir that needs no suitcase.

Jessica’s column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at j.burris@cavalierdaily.com.