When I travel I try to blend in with the natives. My success
is limited. I'm taller than most women, taller than the average
man in many cultures. I'm white, wear glasses and sport short
hair. Like the majority of Americans I don't speak a second language,
but I'm always disappointed when, before I open my mouth, people
in other countries address me in English. I would be insulted
if anyone described me as a "typical American." However, a summer
trip to a quaint island in the quiet Baltic Sea transformed my
view of my American self.
The Danish isle of Bornholm is an idyllic land of rolling fields,
sheltered harbors and picturesque towns. At its northwest corner
stand the remains of Hammershus Slot, a medieval castle, and along
its southeast coast an unblemished beach stretches for mile after
white sand mile. The people are gracious, the bus system efficient
and the island's paved bike paths make it a favorite destination
for European cyclists.
As I meandered the cobblestone streets of Bornholm's small towns
I found much to appreciate. Accomplished artisans sold exquisite
pottery, blown glass and handcrafted textiles from delightful
workshops. Trim boats bobbed in debris-free harbors that smelled
of salt air rather than marine dreck. Half-timber houses, home
to islanders for more centuries than the United States has been
a nation, were gaily painted white, mustard or paprika. Everywhere
I looked windows sparkled, hollyhocks bloomed in profusion, and
lavender grew in lushly scented, arrow-straight rows. The pace
of life was slow and gentle. Quiet prevailed, unbroken by squawking
televisions, thumping music or shouted conversations.
Very admirable, I thought, and found myself enumerating all
the things I don't like about Americans. We consume voraciously
but fail to treasure what we possess. We bulldoze rather than
preserve. We love cars too much and public transportation too
little. We are loud and arrogant; we abhor silence and solitude.
I repeatedly reminded myself of these American faults, but I
could not dispel an inexplicable but growing sense of disquiet.
In Rønne, Bornholm's largest town, I searched for houses
that needed paint and found only one. In the village of Allinge
I cheered when I spotted a tangled, overgrown garden. In Gudhjem,
a seaside town whose name means God's home, I stood on a granite
outcrop overlooking the gentle Baltic. Below me a tidy neighborhood
of brick houses with red tile roofs, immaculate gardens and somnolent
streets stretched to the sea. Not a rusting car on cinder blocks
in sight, I sighed with as much disappointment as appreciation.
Suddenly I was overwhelmed by an almost irresistible urge to
break rules. The desire caught me unaware. Although liberal in
ideology, I am reserved in action and conservative in dress. Yet
in tranquil Gudhjem I wanted to steal roses from private gardens
and press my sweaty palm against spotless windows. I wanted to
talk loudly and sing obnoxious songs. I wanted to be wild; I wanted
to get in someone's face. I wanted everyone to know that I am
a demanding, belligerent, upstart American.
I restrained the impulse, but that afternoon as I dined on a
smorgasbord of herring -- herring that had been pickled, or fried
and pickled, or pickled and dressed with sour cream; herring that
was smoked, or peppered and smoked, or curried and smoked -- I
thought of the countless generations of Bornholmers who had eaten
meal after meal of fish taken from the sea and preserved in traditional
Danish smokehouses. The røgeri, with their distinctive
wide bases, vast fireboxes and tall chimneys, still prevail on
the island. As I ate, I watched young men and women dressed in
black rubber aprons and boots hang mackerel and herring, so fresh
they smelled more of brine than of fish, on wooden racks in preparation
for smoking. These workers, I realized, were the latest in an
unbroken line of islanders who, for generations, had repeated
this same chore at this same smokehouse by this same gray sea.
What would it be like to live here? I wondered. More important,
what would it have been like to live on Bornholm a century or
two ago? What would life have been like when the world ended where
the scoured granite of Bornholm met the cold water of the Baltic?
When every child's fate was written in the worn paths of a stone
farmyard or told by the ageless creak of boats passed from fisherman
father to fisherman son?
I thought of my own ancestors and of the afternoon my mother
and I collated the diverse records of our family genealogy. We
had laughed over the successive German Johannes who had married
generation after generation of Marys in their tiny village in
rural Schleswig. We cried over the record of one couple sailing
from London to New Orleans with a toddler and baby in tow. "Imagine,"
my mother said, blinking back tears, "that grandmother in England
knowing she would never see her grandchildren again." We were
awed by our ancestors' courage and humbled by their desperation.
As a schoolgirl I had been taught that immigrants came to our
country because they longed to worship according to their own
consciences, to live without political persecution. They fled
famine and poverty. They gambled everything on unplowed frontier
land. That afternoon, sitting in a Bornholm røgeri
with a centuries-old reputation for smoked herring, I saw my predecessors
in a vastly different light.
They may have been part of the "huddled masses yearning to breathe
free," but perhaps they were also impatient dreamers who wanted
to live in ways not prescribed by parent, grandparent, great-grandparent.
In rural villages where little changed from generation to generation,
my forefathers and -mothers may have been troublemakers who defied
tradition, upstarts who questioned authority. They may have felt
smothered by the very customs that gave others comfort. When my
ancestors left Europe, their friends and families probably wept,
but perhaps behind the tears those who stayed at home sighed with
relief. The vast land of the New World could deal with my restless
forebears, their unsettling distrust of the status quo and their
impetuous embrace of everything new.
We Americans continue to seek the new. We are stimulated by
frontiers, whether they exist in the West, in outer space or on
the World Wide Web. We are constantly on the move, chasing the
better job, the bigger house, the latest opportunity, the hottest
destination. We jump on ships, planes and trains; we buy RVs.
We indulge in 5-star hotels and trek to remote mountain hostels.
We bungee jump at Victoria Falls, dive the coral reefs of Bora
Bora and walk the hills of Provence. We are always going somewhere;
we are always dreaming of being someplace else.
While on Bornholm I refrained from becoming an obnoxious American.
I didn't break rules or make mischief; I didn't sing vulgar songs
or pilfer prized roses. Instead, I walked the immaculate streets
of quaint towns with newfound pride. I am descended from a long
line of travelers and rovers, seekers and questioners. My ancestors
dared to leave familiar fields, islands and villages, and they
passed on to me their restless desire for the new and the undiscovered.
I relish foreign lands, diverse cultures, exotic food and ancient
sites.
I am tall; I am bold. I am a wanderer.
It is in my genes.
Kay Jordan is an Arizona-based freelance writer.
(July 2004)
