The Power of Travel by Suzanne Maggio
By Suzanne Maggio
“Buen Camino,” I say as I approach the young man. His dark hair peaks out from below a large tan sunhat. The straps dangle well below his chin. His eyes are hidden behind inky sunglasses but he smiles when he turns to look at me.
“Buen Camino,” he answers.
“My name is Suzanne,” I say.
For several weeks I have been walking the 799 kilometers of the El Camino de Santiago, the world famous pilgrimage that traverses the north of Spain, from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.
“I am Kwang,” he replies. His accent is unfamiliar, so strong that initially I do not understand him.
“Where are you from?” I ask, hoping he speaks enough English to answer.
“I am from South Korea,” he says, and I am immediately drawn in.
This is the gift of travel. The opportunity to stretch the boundaries of one’s life. The chance to expand our comfort zones by putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations. To meet people we would not otherwise meet. To break open long held beliefs so that new ideas might creep in.
Kwang was just 21 years old —just out of mandatory military service. He’d been assigned to defend the border from their neighbor to the north.
“What was it like?” I ask him, and then immediately regret my question. What if it was traumatic? What if, like the vets I’d taught for years in my Psychology classes, he was still haunted by the recollection of those months of service. I didn’t want to bring up painful memories, but I was curious. I wanted to understand.
I have spent the better part of my life as a clinical social worker, listening to the stories of others. Curiosity is in my DNA. Bearing witness to the lives my clients have led. The struggles they’ve endured. The impact it’s had on them. Now as a university educator, I do the same with my students. Through writing assignments and class discussions I ask them to share themselves with their classmates and in turn, learn to listen to one another.
I used to take high school students on service trips to El Salvador and Nicaragua. One afternoon in San Salvador we toured the former home of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the priest who had been assassinated by an El Salvadoran death squad during the country’s civil war. The assassination itself happened in 1980, when I was still a student at Boston College.
The following year on a trip to Nicaragua, I met a Salvadoran man who had been there during that time. This man was a seminarian under Archbishop Romero. Had sat at the knee of this peacemaker, this voice for justice. He’d been a pall bearer at the Archbishop’s funeral. He was there when the government’s troops opened fire on the crowd, amid the pandemonium and bloodshed. One night, as we gathered the students to debrief from the day’s activities, he offered a first-hand account of those momentous days. As his gentle voice filled the air, the room became eerily silent. Hearing his story, seeing the living remnants of a civil war allowed me to travel back in time; to gain a deeper understanding of an experience that I’d only seen from a distance.
This too, was true in that moment with Kwang. The idea that this kind and gentle man, barely 21 years old, stood on the front lines defending his country shook me to my core. In that moment, as I had in Nicaragua, I felt my heart expand with gratitude for the opportunity to hear about his experience in his own words, and, as we walked this beautiful landscape together, I was struck by the gift he’d given me, the chance to see things as he sees them, to stand, if only for minute, in his shoes.
As a writer I strive to make the ordinary extraordinary. To share stories that will expand the readers’ views, expose them to experiences outside their comfort zone. To allow them to travel beyond the page to places they have not yet gone or to connect the dots to experiences that live within them. I aim to make the world just a little smaller. To bring into focus the power of human connection.
When my children were small, I read them the Margery William’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit, the tale of the toy rabbit who longed to be real. “Real isn’t how you are made,” the skin horse says to the rabbit in the book. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
Before I met Kwang, South Korea was just a place on a map. A land I could barely imagine. But now it is Kwang’s home, the place where he and his family live. He has given me a window through which to see, to know and begin to understand. In knowing I can no longer accept actions that will jeopardize his safety or the safety of the people he loves. Although we have lived different lives, value different things and speak different languages, my heart has opened a little wider. In hearing his story, like the Velveteen Rabbit, Kwang and the people in the place he called home become real to me.
That’s the power of travel.
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Suzanne Maggio is an author, podcaster, social worker and university instructor. She is the author of Estrellas: Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago, The Cardinal Club: A Daughter’s Journey to Acceptance. Her podcast, From Sparks to Light, shares the stories of ordinary people making a difference in the world.
“Despite evidence to the contrary, I do not think of myself as a particularly courageous soul. I am not content to bask in my accomplishments nor do I spend much time tooting my own horn. I wasn’t raised that way. I was taught to downplay my successes. To steer clear of vanity. I was raised to be humble. So, as I sit down to write this, I hope you’ll forgive me for saying something completely out of character here, but I feel the need to tell you that 779 kilometers is a long way to walk – and I walked every single step…
…As you travel along with me on my journey, I invite you to take the opportunity to explore the spaces around you. Notice the way the sunshine peaks peek through the leaves of the dogwood tree. Listen to the gentle whirr of the wings of the hummingbird. Smell the salt in the sea air. Use your senses. Pay attention to the things that we are often too busy to see. To hear. To smell. Let them take you inward. See where the path leads you.
Buen Camino.”
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Category: On Writing
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