While on this wondrous summery evening it is worth reveling in the luxury of a warm night and a sense of travel on the horizon, something more is there. Perhaps someone like myself wants to see a worm to appreciate the apple. I suppose I haven't been the same since I read Tom Robbins beautiful imagery of a Spanish galleon somewhere in netherworld, a wooden floating Mardi Gras of goodness and badness, and on one side is graffiti'd Hell, and on the other Heaven.

Ah yes, sail away, thoughts. Where was I? Travels. False dichotomies? Luxuries? I've read an introduction to James Clifford's Routes this evening, in which he explores the baggage that has accumulated in our definitions of travel, and how it has changed over time.

How do readings like these compliment someone who has received the gift of travel? I suppose to some it might dampen the excitement, but in my current state of mind, such reflections are welcome. Just what am I getting into? How much is travel a benefit? To me? To those I meet? What of the idea of travel as travail?

Clifford suggests that the authority of the anthropologist has taken many turns. At first, the authority was Herodotus or Byron or Darwin. These texts have a certain romance to them, of an adventurer succeeding over great odds, natural or savage. They are almost comical in their treatment of things unknown. They hint at details left unsaid. They are often the whims of travelers of a different breed than that of today.

Turn of the 20th century, anthropologists believed in the idea, the ostensibly scientific field worker living in a tent, speaking with an authentic native, and writing down the reality of those who live different from us. This too has its romance, even today, since all travelers have an affinity for the other.

But what is the other and are they any different from us? What of all these loaded terms? Are cultural divisions arbitrary? Or worse than arbitrary, are they unconsciously placed where they fulfill the purpose of estrangement, put there as tropes for whatever clichés we can live and rationalize. Are cultural divisions mere stage props for the glorified idea of independence in an unstable world? If this is the case, can we move past it?

Clifford proposes that we reconsider the idea of a traveler. Are those unmentioned guides in travel narratives also “travelers”? Is the black man (unmentioned of course) who accompanied the discoverer (for lack of a better term) of the North Pole, is he caught, a symbol of this restricted idea of travel, something which is male and Eurocentric? What of the Eskimos or the Sherpas or Squanto, the English-speaking Native American, freshly back from Europe himself, the one who saved the pilgrims new to America. Are these "tips of lost icebergs" the fabric of something in the idea of travel, or are they sadly unmentioned to any narrative of travel?

Questions for the fireflies. Maybe they’re speaking Morse Code. Hmm… There is much to ponder, even before I travel. That is, if I am not already traveling, sitting here with much anticipation.