Same Destination

While Kapuscinski and Russell discuss far different subjects in their writings, both are border crossers. What borders do you think each writer has crossed? Do those borders matter to you? Why or why not?


“We are, all of us, pilgrims who struggle along different paths towards the same destination.”    Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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The idea of crossing a border is quite complex. Although they physically exist, every border can be understood as a mental border. When one reaches a land border, it isn’t there – there are no walls, just a welcome sign. By crossing borders into new countries and new cultures, one is actually diffusing the border that exists around self. It is not the country that is being explored, but the soul. As Alice Walker puts is, “The most foreign country is within.” The physical act of crossing a border takes the traveler on an intimate journey of self perception, which eventually, leads to the creation of new borders. The problem with borders is that once one is crossed, a new one comes into view.


Crossing borders is all in a day’s work for travel writers. They extend themselves past the man-made boundaries between lands, realizing that the invisible barriers that separate us are quite tangible. A border is something that stands between a person and the rest of the world.


For Ryszard Kapuscinski, in his travel writing piece, Travels with Herodotus, the border he wanted to cross was a land border. Well, the Iron Curtain. Educated in Cold War Poland, Kapuscinski noted that “the closer one got to a border, the emptier grew the land and the fewer people on encountered.” (9) The lack of life close to the border typifies the mindset of most people: safety in what is known, safety in separation. Living close to a border opens one up to diversity, but this openness leaves one vulnerable.


Vulnerability wasn’t what Kapuscinski was looking for when he made up his mind to cross the border; actually, not much was on his mind. He writes, “It made no difference which [border], because what was important was not the destination, the goal, the end, but the almost mystical and transcendent act. Crossing the border.” (10) And he got the chance to fulfill this transcendent act, flying first to Italy and then to India. Mysticism typically descends upon a traveler as their plane taxis into the terminal, but is jostled away as reality sets in. One most certainly crosses the border between perception and reality when traveling – and this border is not quick and smooth. When one confronts reality it is like being patted down, while security searches your luggage – you lose control and just wait for them to be done.


But, the search is just beginning. Kapuscinski, after embracing the Italian culture and dress, still could feel the prodding eyes of natives search him: “I began to feel unpleasant and uncomfortable. I had changed my suit, but I apparently could not conceal whatever lay beneath it that had shaped and marked me as a foreign particle.” (14) This thing that lies beneath is what makes him stand out, a thing that few travelers want, but most people crave in their everyday lives.


Everyday life is about comfort – comfort that is only realized in its absence. One comfort that most would say is a necessity is safety. But, Mary Russell doesn’t see comfort as a border. She crosses the border of safety into post-war Bosnia, defying government recommendations and self-rationality. Her story, Mirror Images, chronicles her second border crossing into Bosnia, and her first attempts at crossing the border of memory. After a few days she writes, “I adjust to the rhythm and take a walk along the embankment, crossing and re-crossing bridges.” (137) Bridges are man’s denial of borders, or better yet, his solution to them. Bridges connect that which once seemed distant and separate.


Russell brings together perception and reality, crossing the border of impartiality. By the end of her piece, she realizes that she cannot travel to Serbia, as planned, because her heart had taken root in Bosnia. Through her Irish eyes, the Serbs were now the same cold-blooded killers the Bosnians saw. Her connection to place built borders in her head, preventing her from crossing. Yet, borders still existed for her in Bosnia. She explains:


Keeping my eyes down, I shrink into myself, seeking anonymity among the small group of bus passengers. The people with the cameras are German. They are travelling with a four-wheel-drive laded with blankets and provisions, part of an aid donation. The word PEACE is painted on one of the doors. Another safari is arriving. Their cameras, unselective, see only a group of war-time Bozniaks, or which I am one. But I know that is I raise my eyes and look at them, I will see myself.


This brings us back to separation, not of place or thought, but of self. Both authors note the border that cannot be crossed: the life of another. Kapuscinski and Russell both felt like they were part of the countries they visited, but realized that they were just behind the lens of perception, capturing the essence of someone else’s life. In the end, the only reality one knows is their own. And that is why they wrote. The pen is the bridge between the borders of self and the world.


Every time we pick up a piece of writing, we cross borders with the author, traveling to the same destination: within ourselves. This matters, if it didn’t, we wouldn’t write.