100. Independence Day

Liberty doesn’t come without compromise and some “letting go.” On the day the USA celebrates its own freedom, the author leaves his past behind.

Today is July 4. In my native United States, it is a national holiday, Independence Day. On this date in 1776, the 13 original American colonies declared their freedom from England. When the Second Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence, it established the United States of America.

Nearly every American today is decked out in red, white and blue. There’s lots of flag waving. Family barbecues. Other communities may have Animal House-style parades with floral floats and school bands — but Bend, Oregon, the city that I called home longer than any other, has a pet parade. It once had a bicycle “Freedom Ride” (perhaps it still does) until it got so popular that there was no freedom to ride. After dark, fireworks shoot from the summit of Pilot Butte, occasionally providing extra drama by igniting small fires in the dry grass.

For me, July 4, 2023, also represents freedom of a different kind. I have no need to celebrate. With huge help from my brother Fred, assisted by other friends, I have purged my storage locker. I have cut ties with personal history.

Am I feeling nostalgic? Absolutely. But there’s no room for sentimentality. My first 69 years are in the rear-view mirror. I’ll return to the U.S. for visits, to see friends and enjoy outdoor sports in my beloved Cascade Mountains, but not to live. Never say never, but I’m probably in Asia to stay.

Slowly but surely, by fits and starts, I’m creating a new life for myself here. The cost of living is manageable. My friendships are not based upon our politics. I’ve had to adjust my thinking to accommodate a very different culture, a different way of thinking; but I’ve always been willing to do so.

Purging a life

I suspected this would be the case. When I left Oregon in October 2019, just after my 69th birthday, I did so with a one-way ticket to Vietnam. I didn’t have a plan to return. Oh, I knew it was possible, so I rented a portion of my ex’s storage locker. I thought I had eliminated a lot in the weeks and months before my departure. I hadn’t rid myself of as much as I thought I had.

Family memorabilia, photographs and various knickknacks, were important to my siblings and I. But Fred and his family live in Japan, and my sister Lisa and her family have an unstable housing situation. So the keepsakes stayed in the locker for another 45 months.

As fortune would have it, Fred spent the past year on a visiting professorship at a university on the U.S. East Coast, following his retirement from teaching in Osaka. On his return home to Asia this week, he was able to pause in Oregon to collect those family memories and to share them with Lisa.

I asked him, while he was there, to get rid of the rest for me. He generously obliged. It was the great purge. The souvenirs I had collected from my childhood, my teen-age years, my early working life, my world travels as a young adult, book contracts, relationships and marriage were all here. There were memories of my parents and my son, all of them now gone.

I live from suitcases.  I have no descendants since my son passed seven years ago. I have my sister, a few cousins, some dear friends … but were I to return, where would I go?

Be Here Now

Fifty-plus years ago, I was captivated by the teachings of Baba Ram Dass, the Harvard psychologist and cohort of Timothy Leary who became a guiding light for many young would-be hippies of my generation. After I met him in Hawaii, where he spoke to several dozen truth-seekers at an outdoor arena, I embraced him as my guru. His first book, Be Here Now, carrying heavy doses of Hindu-Buddhist belief, was the only one I toted in my backpack for three years during my first trip around the world in the mid-’70s. Here’s one particular lesson I remember (my paraphrase):

Think of yourself as an onion. Lots of layers beneath the skin, yes? And each layer represents a different “you,” a different way that you perceive yourself. So John can strip off his clothes and stand naked. Lookin’ good, man! But there’s more. There’s John the writer. Peel off that layer. It’s gone. There’s John the skier. Say goodbye!  John the traveler, John the music lover, John the philosopher. Throw away those skins. There’s John the lover. Whoops, that’s a hard one. Hadn’t thought about giving that up, eh? Time to say, ‘Hasta la vista, baby.’ But hey, guess what. You’ve peeled off every layer, and there’s still something there. Hmm, you say. So who’s minding the shop? Take a close look: It’s still YOU.

Stripping the past

These are some of the layers that I’ve stripped off and said goodbye to in the last few days:

* Copies of the books I’ve written, and everything I ever published in books, magazines and newspapers, starting with my mimeographed junior high-school newspaper, The Wilsonian.

* My stamp collection. Perhaps more than any other single thing, it was this that launched me into a career as a travel journalist. As a child, I studied each foreign stamp to learn something about the place it came from. I especially loved the pictorial issues with exotic African animals or stamps that recalled historical events. I learned something from them all.

* My mask collection, amassed during decades of travel on five continents.

* Old sports programs, magazines and press passes: I began my career in journalism as a sportswriter. Boxes of baseball cards. Sports equipment — skiing, fishing, tennis, golf, you name it.

* Some classic jazz records. Brubeck, Coltrane, Miles Davis, Pharaoh Sanders, to name but a few.

* Books and maps. My collections were heavy on Asia, philosophy and travel destinations, along with scores of paperback thrillers that were often my escape. I also loved maps, even in this era of GPS technology. As a child, I’d often spin the globe, close my eyes, put my finger on the orb, and imagine traveling there. By now, there’s a good chance I have been.

* Boy Scout memorabilia from the ’60s, including uniforms, neckerchiefs, merit badges and souvenirs from national and world jamborees that I attended.

* Clothes and more clothes. Old love letters in several languages. A number of framed and unframed paintings, including batik art I created in Java in 1976.

Preserve your memories

Many of these things have been welcomed to new homes. Others have been taken to the city dump or to the Goodwill store.

I’m especially grateful to my friend Kathleen who collected thousands of my 35mm slides with a promise to digitize what she’s able. Long before cell phones (and certainly before phones with built-in cameras), my best friend in my travels was my camera. Now, perhaps, I can keep my whole life on a thumb drive.

In the winter of 1969, as a student at the University of Oregon, I was fortunate to attend a concert by the effervescent folk-rock duo of that era, Simon and Garfunkel. It was one of the final dates of their “Bookends” tour. And as they left the stage that night in McArthur Court, they did so with a serenade that a 72-year-old man can understand far more clearly than an 18-year-old child:

Time it was / And what a time it was, it was

A time of innocence / A time of confidences

Long ago it must be / I have a photograph

Preserve your memories / They’re all that’s left you