Bear with me as I detour briefly from the travelogue to a personal reflection I had on leaving the serenity of Dornach for the mysterious and somewhat melancholic region of southwestern Germany where I was now headed. After all, every worthwhile journey, actual or virtual, pits our inner world against a further aspect of the outer world, and we come away changed by the experience.
Why Dornach, a destination barely connected to the novel in progress, for three of the sixteen days of the trip? Not to sound flippant, but I did it because I could. In scheduling a lengthy journey, I’ve learned to build in some flexibility; attention overload can sometimes strike when attention is needed most. With Internet booking services, I only have to make hotel reservations a few days down the road. Besides, I’d just gained a day by scratching Lake Constance.
Heading out of Munich Friday morning on highways matching Long Island’s for congestion, the weather turned nasty and stayed that way for two days, making what should have been a glorious trip through the Alps quite a tiring go behind the wheel. And this was a stretch where I’d planned on vigorous hiking to hone in on a critical places related to my story.
Bypassing some of the most picturesque places in southern Germany (the castle Neuschwanstein, Oberammergau, the Chiemsee, even Hitler’s hideaway in Berchtesgaden), I headed south for the Austrian border city of Kufstein, in the mountainous vicinity of which my protagonist met a mysterious and violent death in a snowstorm in 1939.
That Dachau, site of one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps, was the first item on my trip agenda shows, I hope, how intensely focused on my mission I was. After all, it was in autumn in Munich, and for most visitots that meant Oktoberfest with beer and oompah bands in abundance. After flying to the Bavarian capital on Tuesday night, during which I slept 2-3 hours at most, arriving early Wednesday morning, picking up a car at the airport, blearing my way through rush hour traffic, and locating the hotel more in the heart of an unfamiliar city, I made my usual painful attempt to fall in with the local time, no matter what.
My favorite quote, one embossed on the coffee cup I use every day, is from Henry David Thoreau: Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
Today, I sit in my apartment, yes, in New York City (thus the Saturday Night Live line). In a couple of days, I take off on the second leg of my European research tour for The Perfect. I am living the life I have imagined.
A bit over a year ago I completed the first half of a research tour planned so as to follow the footsteps of the protagonist in my current novel in progress, The Perfect. That portion took me through the castles, fortifications, caves and Pyrenean mountain passes of the Languedoc region of France, the Catalan province in northern Spain, and along the Mediterrean coast to Provence, winding up in Avignon, for a brief time the site of the Holy See. I had plans to push northward; but on August 27 I recieved the news that my 95-year-old mother had passed away, so I took a train to Paris and flew home to be with the family for Mom’s memorial service.
