In Motion: The Experience of Travel by Tony Hiss

 

In Motion: The Experience of Travel by Tony Hiss defies classification. Ostensibly it’s about travel, and it is, especially about what Hiss dubs “Deep Travel”. But Hiss is a talented writer and has an inquiring mind such that his book works much like Montaigne’s Essays: wandering here and there around a common theme. In some authors, of course, this can prove irksome and off-putting, but in this book, I gladly found myself following Hiss’s detours and by-ways as we explored Deep Travel.

Hiss doesn’t ever definitely define Deep Travel, but this is another potential defect that signals that the search is still underway. As a preliminary, we can say that Deep Travel is that journey, around the corner or around the world, that alters our consciousness. Our mind, in its structures and perceptions, alters as we face a new landscape. Thus, while walking home during the 2003 NYC blackout, the familiar hyper-city of NY changes without the flow of electricity, and Hiss experiences views and perspectives that he’d never encountered before. He also draws on the work of others, such as Patrick Leigh Fermor, whose meditation from a bridge crossing a river in the Balkans provides a verbal portrait of this same type of experience. Hiss transitions from experiences of travel as such into psychology, beginning with the great fountainhead of American psychology, William James, and then drawing upon the more recent insights of the late Edward S. Reed, an “ecological psychologist”. Indeed, a list of psychologists, anthropologist, paleontologists, and other writers and thinkers could go on for some length. Hiss explores here and there ideas as they occur to him. Hiss uses places with similar abandon for launching his insights: New Jersey swamps, NYC streets, Balkan Rivers, the primeval African savannah: so many references to place and ideas makes this into a buffet of ideas.

A lot of the latter part of the book concerns human origins and how we developed our brains that allows the psychology of Deep Travel to develop. Hiss argues that along with concentrated attention, daydreaming, and flow, humans developed a “wide-angle awareness” that allows us to scan and consider our environment with the use of our bi-pedal stance and stereoscopic vision. He relates this to the way cats can leisurely pause to wait for prey to place themselves in a position of exposure; that is, not ready to pounce and not indifferent, but widely alert, something called SMR (sensorimotor rhythm). (EEG leads on cat skulls first gave us this insight—I love the image.) One riff that Hiss takes on this is that exploring for knowledge, such as of place, has a built-in pleasure reward (like sex and food) that promotes such behavior.

It’s difficult to review this work because its ideas are so many and diverse as they array around this general topic. For some, this is a hindrance (see William Dalrymple’s critique in his NYT review), but for me, with Montaigne as a model and sufficient rewards for following Hiss’s curiosity, I really enjoyed the book. I highly recommend it to anyone who has the curiosity to follow him around in this journey of a book—and who has a yen to experience Deep Travel.

Cross-posted in SNG Thoughts blog

Reflections on Puebla, Mexico

C and I arrived in Puebla late at night about 10 days ago, and after hitting the bed early, we awoke to explore Puebla, a city of about 4 million located about 2 hours drive from Mexico City. We stayed in a monastery converted into a hotel (common on Latin America) in the old town, the centro. Walking down narrow stone streets and sidewalks, we quickly found the zocolo, or town square, with the cathedral on one side and the palacio municipal on the other as one expects in old colonial cities so that the sacred and secular authorities could keep an eye on each other.

But the traditional look and architecture, at once familiar and yet still new to us, did not make so great an impression as the liveliness of the city and its people. We spent a good time in and around the zocolo, from late morning to late at night, and it teemed with people virtually all hours of the day: children playing with balloons or balls, families strolling, players performing, and young couples huddling. The public space seemed ideal. The police were present, but not obtrusive, and never in our time did we see or hear of any violence or disturbance. (Persons using loudspeakers, especially during what appeared to be a political protest, we’re the greatest bother that we encounter. Few, if any, should be ever granted access to a loudspeaker.) Around the zocolo restaurants and shops pulled people in for daily needs and more opportunities to talk, eat, and hang out. The side streets contained small shops and well as street vendors (everything from books to shawls to paintings to old everythings). We even found a Woolworth(‘s) store, from which C picked up some items. How could we resist? (We both have primal memories of the wood-floored Woolworth’s of our youth on main street in Shenandoah).

C, who has been to Puebla twice before, tantalized me in advance with the claim that it is the gastronomical capital of Mexico. Based on what she brought back in the way of new recipes from her cooking classes there last year, I was an easy sell. Puebla lived up to its billing. In fact, our hotel in the centro, Maison de Sacristia, includes the restaurant where she took her lessons. The food there was out of sight. Muy rico, muy sobroso, muy delicioso! We enjoyed another couple of high-end places as well (including an Argentinian steak house to mix it up a bit), but on the other end of the spectrum, we went to a small tacqueria arrabe near the zocolo filled with locals. Wow! For a few bucks we had some great tacos, a side of onions (for me only,) and carne en queso. Yum! If Puebla has a challenger for better food in Mexico, please don’t take me there, I’m afraid I’d blow-up a la Monty Python.

After about three days staying in the centro at Sacristia, we moved to the edge of town, which was deemed better for getting C to and from her workshops. It was a modern hotel with nice amenities, but perhaps the best amenity was that on the 7th floor we could see the world around us, which included mountains and volcano s.(As perhaps a remnant of when our remotest ancestors evolved on the African savannah, one thing that bothers me about old cities such as those of Latin America are the narrow streets and uniform buildings that cut off views of the horizon and other signals of place, leaving one a sense of uncertainty about one’s greater surroundings, ameliorated somewhat by the careful grid upon which the streets are laid out.)  

As mornings in Puebla were clear, crisp, and sunny, we had excellent view of the volcano Popocatepetl (Popo), a  magnificent site, similar to Mt. Rainier near  Seattle (which can prove a real phantom for occasional visitors like me.) During our trip to nearby Chalupa on Saturday, and on our trip here to Metepec, Popo put on a show. Saturday it raised a huge plume of smoke and ash into the air, and on Sunday as we traveled past it we saw clouds and ash shrouding the peak in a manner that I imagine Mt. Sinai was shrouded when Moses went there to meet with God. As a sight it awesome and magnificent.

Puebla lies at about 7,000 feet above sea level on a plain. The crisp, sunny early mornings are followed in the afternoon by a build up of clouds (which we could see rolling in from our 7th story room) that resulted in some rain in the later afternoon or evening. Interestingly, it never seemed to empty the centro or zocolo, which remained vibrant regardless. The streets were clean and well-maintained. This part of Mexico, at least, seems reasonably prosperous and well-governed.

I’ll have more to report in further posts, but I can say that Puebla was a real treat, and if you have a chance to visit, do it.