As
we pack our bags and embark upon the journey—yes, we said it,
the journey—that is 2016, the editors of ELLE present a challenge: This
year, let's worry less about changing ourselves and more about changing
our view. Let's go there—literally. We're not saying you have to ship
off to Siberia, though one of our writers did just that. Even exploring
an undiscovered (to you) neighborhood in your own city can teach you
something about yourself, your own history, and, critically, about
someone else you'd otherwise have missed. Here, women recall the
far-flung spots—from steamy Turkish baths to chillingly gorgeous Chilean
icebergs—that altered their moods, freed their minds, and rerouted
their lives.
For a long time I hated "wild travel." I liked to be prepared.
In
the 1990s, southern Chile was as far as I could get from Nashville and
be back in seven days. Back then I was a single mother, and what I call
wild travel—last-minute, no-research, no-reservation pleasure
trips—typically happened when a business trip, usually related to
screenwriting, fell through, and I had already arranged child care.
I
have a wild travel companion: Mimi, my daughter's godmother, my best
friend. People are alternately perplexed and intrigued by the presence
of a black woman in plain black clothes and a Japanese woman in richly
hued attire of complex construction. Sometimes our act opens doors
better than a passport. Chile was no exception: It got us our own
dinghy.
After flights from
Nashville to Miami, Miami to Santiago, and Santiago to Punta Arenas, we
boarded a ship and cruised into the Chilean fjords around Cape Horn. We
heard a glacier calving; I was prepared for that. I had read about that
sound—and it was almost as amazing as promised. Then we came upon an
iceberg—it was just like in the movies.
A
group of rather charming Spanish-speaking men negotiated to have a
Zodiac boat take them out to the iceberg. The plan was to venture onto
the frozen deep with cocktail glasses and scotch, hack off a bit of the
iceberg, then sip the scotch over iceberg ice while touching the iceberg
with one hand. We were invited join their "Scotch on the Rocks" party
but politely declined.
We
didn't want to attack the thing. Or drink it. We wanted to peer inside,
if there was an inside to see. Or maybe the thing was solid. We didn't
know. But we wanted to know. And we wanted quiet for our close
encounter.
A Chilean
gentleman who was working as a deckhand had been smiling at us; our
smiles in return (and a little cash) inspired him to commandeer another
dinghy and paddle just the two of us out to the iceberg.
It
was not easy jumping from ship to dinghy in bulky clothes. With every
yard we traveled across the waves some new fear rose in me. We would be
snagged on a part of the iceberg we couldn't see, and our boat would be
punctured. One of the icebergs would calve underwater, and a huge chunk
of ice would emerge from the deep. All my scenarios ended with and then we will drown.
The
inside of an iceberg looks like the nave of a giant cathedral of blue
ice. And I have lived to tell you. I did not drown. The walls soar and
float. The space appears intentionally and expressively carved.
The
outside of an iceberg looks chiseled by water, wind, and time; the
inside is something else. Something you haven't seen in 100 books or
1,000 movies. Something worth getting off the big, safe boat and out in
the rubber dinghy to see. "Hand of God beautiful," I called it. Right
out loud.
But what it
really was, for me, was unexpected. I was elated by the shock of beauty
unforetold. Before I saw the Grand Canyon, I had read about it and heard
so much talk. Had clippings. Ditto the Alps. Mount Fuji. The South
China Sea. So many said-to-be-glorious and glorious-enough points on the
globe.
The inside of
an iceberg was a delight for which I was not prepared. A pleasure that
had not been foreshadowed. It remains the most beautiful place I have
seen on earth.
Sometimes the trick of travel is to not know before you go.
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