Personal Stories of Modest Exploration

I have outlined six key themes from the Renaissance and Reformation. In discussing voyages of discovery and exploration, this illustrated the second theme, "Brave New Worlds: Travel and Social Change." I made the point in class that there was a physical or material component to this exploration (actual voyages to faraway places took place, and actual physical goods were brought back to Europe); and there was a more abstract kind of exploration (as the minds of Europeans opened to the possibilities of change, improvement, and opportunities of many kinds).

Mediating these two worlds (the physical and mental) were travel narratives, reports and stories (not always factual and frequently exaggerated) which nevertheless inspired and sustained ideas of renewal. It turns out that even modest journeys, properly recounted, can have this same effect of opening the mind and inspiring the heart. Take for example, Francesco Petrarch.

I mentioned the trip that Petrarch took up Mount Ventoux in 1336. He had read about Philip of Macedon (from the second century BC) climbing a mountain, and this inspired him. Later, he would himself write about this eye-opening journey for him. In other words, a story from history prompted his climb, and in return he told his own story, which in its turn has inspired others.

But Petrarch was no Columbus or Magellan. He didn't risk scurvy and circle the globe on unknown oceans. Petrarch's ascent up Mount Ventoux took him up a modest height (only about 6,000 feet, comparable to the elevation of the Y on Utah Valley's Y Mountain). It's true that traveling far and taking risks to go boldly where others have not gone can inspire both the traveler and those who hear his or her story. But it is also true that, with the right frame of mind, an even very modest journey can give us new eyes on our world or open us to change.

I have been to India, and I love to tell about my adventures there. Sometimes, I have even exaggerated these, as when an ocean swell off of the coast of Mumbai required the emergency evacuation of the small tourist boat that was taking me back from the island of Elephanta. But I have also been to places that none would consider interesting per se. Some of those destinations have mattered more, have given me more insight and vision, than have my farthest travels on the globe.

Assignment

I would like my students to recount a brief story, a personal account of modest exploration or discovery. I don't want to hear about travels to Paris or Paraguay. I want to hear about a Petrarch-level of exploration: maybe something inspired by a book (but not necessarily), but something more along the lines of a modest hike up the local hill that nevertheless opened your eyes and allowed you to see something new. (I won't mind hearing stories of actual hikes, but some diverse subject matter would be welcome, too.) The destination isn't the exotic. It could just be the eye-opening. Your goal is to take your readers with you on a short but meaningful journey of exploration and personal discovery. No plane tickets required. How have you encountered the new in eye-opening ways, but not through grand travel or the obviously exotic?

Here is an example:

Yesterday I started reading The Carpet People, a humorous novel by British author Terry Pratchett. The whole story takes place on a small stretch of carpet. The little beings that inhabit the dust and grit within carpet fibers have great adventures, including death-defying encounters with a vacuum cleaner.  

About a year ago, my wife and I were shopping for carpet. We went to Steve Ogden's Carpet Outlet in Orem. The salesman was telling us all the facts about the levels of quality, what carpet is best for bedrooms, what square footage vs. square yardage means, etc. But I had tuned most of that out. You see, I had taken off my shoes and was walking barefoot across their patchwork of sample carpets. I have stepped on soft things before, but I never knew that walking on a piece of carpet could be so satisfying. Oh yes, we had to get the higher quality carpet pad. And we had to get the carpet that you just wanted to keep running your hands through. "Just think of walking across our bedroom stepping on this every day!" That's what I said to my wife, corny as it was. 

Well, we didn't get that carpet because it cost too much. But I vowed that one day we would. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe this was a small pleasure that would go away even if we had bought that carpet. But until that afternoon at Steve Ogden's in Orem I never would have thought that a carpet could matter that much. Somewhere, someone has bought that higher end pad and the softer carpet. They have paved their home with its lushness, and each day they live in a zen-like bliss. If I could, I would visit their house and step all over their furry floor in my bare feet.