Sunday, September 12, 2021

Travel is like a wheel of cheese...

After a year of isolation and lockdown, I was ready for the vacation of a lifetime. I would travel the coasts of America, and I would do it by county bus. 

Why go by local transit? To understand, consider the two ways to open a wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano. One might take the direct approach by sawing the wheel in half and carving out the interior. To the uninitiated, this strategy might seem perfectly reasonable: after all, it's just cheese. But this is absolutely wrong. Just watch this Italian chef as he handles a wheel. With loving care, he spins the cylinder, traces a shallow seam around the center, and plunges two long knives diagonally into the sides. And then he waits. ("Now is the time to smoke a cigarette," he says.) Minutes later, he sweeps the knives out and voila! the center divides into two universes of crags and canyons of cheese and glistening salt. The true character of the Parmigianino is revealed: not a geometric solid, but a world of ungovernable texture. "Allow the cheese to explain himself to you," the man says. "There is no 'another way.'" 

To travel by car is to slice straight through the land, overlooking texture for the sake of speed and control. Each stop is deliberate and somewhat furtive -- an avoidable delay which can be terminated at will. The traveler moves in a small extension of his own home, never fully immersed in the world running by. 

To travel by local transit is to allow the country to "explain himself to you." It is to traverse a chain of routes which stop at hospitals, grocery stores, prisons, and beaches, following the contours of local life. Waits between buses, as inescapable as the law of gravity, thrust you into the each small town along the way. You travel with only a backpack and a bag of exact change. You must have faith in accurate schedules and good drivers to sweep you slowly along your path.

Local transit is slow and challenging. But if you want to really see America, there is no another way!

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