2014: A year at the peripheries of the world

This has been a busy year for me, personally, professionally, and otherwise. There’s been a lot of change in 2014. Changes that forced me to re-ask the most fundamental questions about my life. I’m not going to write about all of those changes here, for the reader’s sake more than anything, but I will write about one thing that did change significantly: my countries visited list. That list tripled in size during 2014.

1. United States (November 19, 1981)
2. Canada (1984)
3. Philippines (1986)
4. South Korea (1992)
5. Brazil (March 15, 2014)
6. Japan (May 18, 2014)
7. Italy (August 18, 2014)
8. San Marino (August 27, 2014)
9. Vatican City (August 31, 2014)
10. Germany (September 2, 2014)
11. Spain (September 8, 2014)
12. Portugal (September 15, 2014)



Hence why I chose the title of this blog. In a very literal sense, I went to the peripheries of the world. The title is also taken from the title of the 2014 Rimini Meeting in Italy (Verso le periferie del mondo e dell’esistenza: Il destino non ha lasciato solo l’uomo), which itself is taken from a quote from Pope Francis. In this quote, he challenged Christians to go to the peripheries, to pastor the poor, the marginalized, the “peripheries” of society. The Rimini Meeting explored what this call means, in every facet of culture. What does it mean for a social worker to go to the peripheries? For a politician? For a painter? What about for a mother? For a teacher? For a scientist? And for me?

Earlier, I referred to the blog post title as being “literal” in reference to the fact that I actually did span four different continents. But another sense is no less literal: I had to go to the peripheries of my own experience to visit all these places. I had to go outside not just the borders of the United States of America, but outside myself. Besides a very brief stay in South Korea with my parents as a pre-teen, before 2014 I’d never been in a country where I didn’t speak the local language. (Well, unless you count Miami as a separate country.) With each new country, I had to learn a new language, discover a different culture, adopt unique customs, eat unfamiliar foods, even entrust my very life to complete strangers, as I did when I jumped off the “periphery” of that ledge pictured at the top of this blog.

I discovered that only by going outside of myself do I fully become myself. With all the changes that I’ve had to adapt to in 2014, there was the strong temptation to turn inward for the solution. I spent a lot of 2014 trying to “fix” things to suit my tastes better. In contrast, during my travels, I learned to love Brazilian culture precisely for what it was, not because I could fit it into my box. I needed to learn this not just to survive in Rio de Janeiro, but to get by at work, at home with my family, or just at dinner with a friend. I was challenged to love that friend precisely for who she is, not because I could fit her into my box.

With my upcoming blog posts, I plan to describe each place I visited in 2014, starting in my next post with São Paulo, Brazil. I’ll include pictures, talk about the people I met, throw in some anecdotes. But I hope to also describe how these experiences changed me, drew me outside of myself. More generally, I plan to blog about any other life events that force me to look at myself and reality in a different way. That could be a new city I visit, world events in Paris, the Super Bowl, or just an interesting conversation with a friend. But at least at the beginning, it will mostly be about my travels from 2014. Lastly, I hope the family and friends who might read this will also offer their own suggestions, comments, etc., to help me along that path.