The Scouring

I’m not sure if you’ve ever read the Lord of the Rings.  I hope that you have, as I consider it a great novel, but I understand if you haven’t.  Some people find the language used and Tolkien’s style to be a bit too archaic for a modern audience; and who wants to hear the professor drone on and on about forests and dells and vales, pages upon pages.  I personally think that this adds to the charm, but can see how it could seem a bit overly verbose.  Well, if you haven't read the book, I at least imagine that most of you have seen the Lord of the Rings movies.  They are rather fantastic and present a great, if not wholly accurate to Tolkien’s original work, story.  You might be asking yourself why I am talking about the Lord of the Rings so much in my blog, besides the fact that I am a big fan (John Kelley, I’m still expecting that Tolkien trivia-off).  I bring it up because there is a part of the book that I think sums up how I felt while in America.  It takes place at the end of the book (spoiler!!!), after Frodo has destroyed the ring. (Though it wasn’t really Frodo who achieved this in the end, as he ultimately failed in his quest to throw the ring into Orodruin, being overcome by the corrupting power of it.

cast it into the fire!!!

 It was Gollum whose actions ultimately led to its final destruction.  In a way then Frodo was able to fulfill his quest because it was Frodo’s mercy, allowing Gollum to live, that precipitated the ring's destruction.  I guess this points to Tolkien’s notion of mercy and redemption, that through mercy greatness can be achieved.)

Anyway, so Frodo is on the road back home.  And whereas in the movie he finds the Shire as good as ever and a warm welcome waiting, the book is quite different.  Frodo comes back to a Shire that has been corrupted: trees have been cut down, the people bullied in a police state, even the jolly mayor was rotting in some cell somewhere.

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Isn't that a much better ending?

Of all the changes made in the film, I think that this is one of the most egregious, as it is thematically imperative to the narrative.  Frodo can go back to the Shire, but he can never truly go back home.  Home was his innocence, it was his naivete, it was the world he knew before he realized that there is a bigger, grander, more dangerous world out there.  It is his youth, that ultimately can never be re-obtained, and the filter through which he see the world as adults is irrevocably set over his eyes.  And after all, isn’t that the point of a hero’s quest?  He leaves young and innocent, goes on a bunch of adventures, learns a bunch of stuff, and comes back home a changed person.  He is then able to share what he has learned to better the people back home (I think that’s what Joseph Campbell was talking about, I never read his book).

Something about a cycle

 And while he brings a boon, he is forever restless, filled with wanderlust, dissatisfied with a life that was once enchanting, but now seems boring.  This is just like Bilbo coming back after an adventure of his own.  Though he was happy to be back home, he was never truly content or joyful, for he ever heard the call of the distant mountains, the falls of Rivendell, the very call of adventure.

Now this might seem a bit extreme, and I admit that I am speaking in hyperbole, but it is quintessentially the same idea.  When I came back to America I was amazed at how quickly I fell back into my old habits.  The first day you get back is amazing.  What is this comfortable stuff under my feet?  Carpet? Unheard of.  Because it's really the little things you come to appreciate after being devoid of them for so long.  Sitting on a comfortable couch after a long day.  Taking a warm shower under a faucet with running water.  Feeling clean.  I mean, truly feeling clean.  Here in Africa we take showers rather frequently, but I never feel truly clean.  This is probably because while in America, when you are indoors, you are isolated.  Nature is outside, you are inside.  In Africa, I never truly escape nature, what with the crickets and camel spiders and frogs and lizards and mice that live in my hut.  I mean, my roof is essentially grass and my doors are more nominally so than substantively.  That first day is great, looking down at your clean feet in a climate controlled room. 

And then there is the food.  By god, the food!  The first thing most people have asked me when I returned to Senegal was “what was the first thing you ate when you got to America?”  I thought I’d take this time to answer this question: it was beef enchiladas.  So Good.  Just think of all the food: carne asada burritos, fish tacos, pizza, hot dogs, lasagna, hamburgers, Indian food, Ethiopian food (gotta get that tej!), dim sum, sushi, gyros, bacon.  You get the idea. 

Tej!!! It really is half the experience!

As I was saying before I got distracted by food, after that first day it is very easy to fall back into old habits, and whereas the thought of a good beer was once amazing, it becomes once again commonplace.  America truly is the land of plenty.  After a week my whole year in Africa felt like a dream that I had just woken up from, reemerging into reality.  This was actually at first rather concerning, after all, what had I spent all this time there for if everything went back to basic normality (normalcy is technically improper, being coined by Harding in his famous “return to normalcy” speech.  Wait, I just looked up the Wikipedia page, apparently it had been in English dictionaries dating back to at least 1867.  Harding himself said that he looked in the dictionary and couldn’t find normality, but could find normalcy.  Fascinating).  Anyway, whereas habits returned to normality, I never truly felt that I had mentally.  I’m not saying that I went crazy in Senegal, though I haven’t had that checked… I’m just saying that I was never able to get back into that pre-Senegal mindset.  There was that lingering wanderlust, that vestigial pull of nascent adventurism.  Like Frodo going back to the Shire, I felt like I wasn’t able to truly go home.

And what does that mean for me now?  I’m not all that sure.  I once saw myself as the type who would live in America my whole life, getting an entry level career job and working my way up.  That’s the modern American dream after all.  I’m not sure if I’d be satisfied with that anymore.  I’m not saying that I never want to settle down, but this is the time to explore.  I’ve heard the quote that we are an unfortunate generation because we were born too late to explore the globe, but too early to explore the galaxy.  This might be true, that there is no more uncharted land, but there is so much exploring that we can do.  Though we might be able to look at satellite images of the amazon rainforest, that is not the same as going there and truly exploring it.  I feel like I am rambling.  The point that I am trying to make is, my time in America has shown me that there is a seed that is planted in anyone who lives abroad, such that America loses the pristine shine of our youthful understanding of it.  Maybe this means I want to stay abroad for now, and not permanently move back to America.  I don’t know, but whereas that uncertainty was once terrifying, I now find it exhilarating.  I suppose that is the nature of personal growth.