Hospitality: Travel in Disguise?

Hospitality is a subtle form of travel. It offers many of the best gifts of travel, without imposing the many costs that literal travel imposes on the living globe. And here are some of the gifts I mean; xhen a guest comes you get:

• The sudden immersion in variety.
• An uptick in the probability of surprise.
• Access to a set of stories not your own.
• Exposure to angles of perception not your own.
• A good excuse for eating and drinking.
• An opportunity, by means of comparison and contrast, to recognize the blessings in your life. 

All these are gifts of travel. They are also gifts incidental to the practice of hospitality. 

Now of course, there are limits to every metaphor and comparison, and limits certainly apply here. But so what? What matters is that when people get together as guest and host, something very powerful often happens. Something full of the opportunity for growth and change. Something again, quite a bit like the best kind of travel. 

Not so long ago, my wife and I hosted a family of five, the youngest of whom was a boy of four. Throughout their visit, the boy kept calling me into the sun-room, which serves as a writing and study space and is also full of plants. He asked me to show him my typewriter, and to explain to him my hourglass. Then it was on to my bamboo flutes. Would I, he asked, teach him to make a sound on these? I did my best. At one point he even inquired as to whether I kept any "disguises" in the room, a question to which, sadly perhaps, I could only answer no. What did he have in mind, though, I wondered: a superhero costume, a pirate get-up?

Then absolutely out of the blue, he said: "You are an awesome writer!" Nothing rational here. Just the purest of unsought gifts. A compliment given in absolute faith. And I'll take it. When a four-year-old child says you're awesome at something, why not just believe? 

All in all, it was a delightful evening with both the family and the boy. And here's a question: if, in lieu of this memorable evening with this inquisitive and charming little human being, I had been offered a fine meal at a restaurant on the Riviera, or an evening under the stars in the Australian desert, or an adventurous afternoon with camel traders in the Sahara, dancers included, would I have traded it in? 

I think not. The boy, I think, was travel enough. His curious spirit was like a beautiful place I had stumbled upon, and our evening's friendship was my visit to his mind. 



HB