Call Me Ishmael
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. I haven’t yet read it in its entirety. But I’m working on it.
Over the years, I’ll pick up my copy and start reading it again, starting from Ishmael’s** famous opening line, trying to get up a good head of steam in order to barrel past the mark where I arrived at the previous place I read (noted with the same worn bookmark that’s now as much a part of the book as its dust jacket), where I then continue on until I imagine I’ll flounder once more and eventually sputter to a stop.
Ishmael begins his long tale by listing all the reasons he feels the need to go to sea. This one particular line tickles me every time: That it requires “…a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
That line resonates with me every time because there are plenty of people whose hats I’d not only like to knock off, but whose entire blocks I’d like to send rolling into the gutter along with their hats.
Yeah, I think it’s high time I set off to sea.
Sue and I, once more, are packing up the truck with camping gear, leaving for Canada where we plan on not returning to the United States until sometime in October. That is if, given the current political relations between our two countries, they’ll even have us.
The border crossing is just one uncertainty that looms. Last year, even before the November 2024 election, the customs agent at the border at the Roosevelt Bridge (Lubec, Maine to Campobello Island) grilled us with out of the ordinary questions like why did we want to enter Canada and why were we staying so long—by our reckoning only a paltry six weeks, how much money did we have, what we did for a living in the United States (you call this living? I wanted at ask but realized it was not the right time for jokes.) Someone later told us Canadian custom agents were stepping up screening for Americans entering their northern neighbor, looking for peole who wanted to live there. Got it: We were being profiled as potential “illegal aliens”.
I can see why we might get flagged. A very late model Ford Ranger—standard shift, four-wheel drive, two-seater—driven by a decidedly counter-culture-looking long-haired, bearded hippie, packed to the gunwales with tents, sleeping bags, cots, mattresses, two stoves (one two-burner and one canister), a few week’s worth of bottled gas for said stoves, two coolers, duffels containing about a month’s worth of dry goods, power banks for charging devices off the grid, and a hammock. I can see where it might look like we’re thinking of staying awhile.
This year there is a special addition to the truck…
…a magnet for the tailgate. Even with Massachusetts plates, we want our position on international politics clear, because another concern we have is the reception we’ll get from everyday Canadians given the tariffs and talk of making Canada the 51st state. Will we be welcomed? Shunned? Pitied? Even considering the friendly, mild-mannered disposition of your average Canadian, it will only take one deranged person (elbows up!) to paint, Yankee Go Home on the truck.
While we were traveling in Spain and Portugal earlier this year from January to mid-March, we noticed a definite change in how people perceived us as Americans as Trump was first inaugurated and then he and his goons were set loose on the international landscape. Toward the end, people were definitely leery upon learning we were Americans, I imagine questioning their own perception of what an American actually is, trying to gauge whether they were face-to-face with an actual MAGA or just your average garden variety stupid American.
This is what it’s like to be an American nowadays, isn’t it? Or at least, a certain kind of American. The kind who does not approve of any of this MAGA ideology, and who certianly did not vote for any of it. Who does not approve of where the current regime has taken the country.
But what can I do?
All of my experience traveling tells me, though, that we would have more to worry about if we were traveling in just about any state in the U.S. In Canada, I’m guessing, I’m hoping, it’s black flies and mosquitos that are all we’ll need to concern ourselves with.
These times do make me even more aware of something I’ve known for a very long time: The very nature of travel, of being a traveler, imposes a responsibility on you. The Ugly American is a very real thing, and all the years I’ve been wandering the globe I’ve tried to counter that image, mainly because I found that person so vulgar, against everything and everyone I’ve ever experienced while traveling. It’s the seed that eventually sprouted into full-bloom MAGA.
These times make that responsibility even more paramount.
We are all informal ambassadors to the United States, both inside our borders and especially when we travel. Our platform as individuals may be small, but nonetheless it’s still there and now is the time to use that platform, even if it’s something as simple as a message on the tailgate of a truck.
As an artist, there are things I can do. Ideals and ideas I can stand up for. I’m currently on leave from Atlantic Works Gallery, returning in October, but I am particiapting in the gallery’s summer show, Art As Resistance: We Are All Welcome Here. If for some reason you find yourself in East Boston during the show, by all means check it out. AWG is one of the friendliest little galleries you’ll ever find.
As always, I’ll be publishing this little blog while traveling, usually from a hotspot on my phone while sitting at a picnic table. Because of the political climate, this time seems different from all the other times. We’ll see. But I do hope you’ll come along with me.
**The biblical Ishmael was the son of Abraham by the bondservant Hagar, an Egyptian. Ishamel was disinherited and cast out in favor of his younger half-brother Isaac, Abraham’s son by his wife Sarah. An angel prophesied: “And he will be a wild man; and every man’s hand against him.” The name commonly means an exile or outcast. —Moby-Dick; or The Whale, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.; New York, 1967; text and notes by Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker.
Totally agree that it’s key in these times to be the best person each of us can be and to extend compassion and acceptance to the people whom we come in contact with. There is much more that binds us than separates us. Hope you and Sue have a great trip and good experiences. Look forward to more🙏👍😘
Understood, guys. Many weeks over 60 years have been spent in Canada. They are, as a society, much like the US in the 50's, friendly, helpful, just good folk. And I should apologize for specifying "the 50's" as those qualities are certainly present here today. But politics has poisoned our atmosphere, our picture to the world, burying to the world the qualities I noted.