universal wanderers

Varekai means "wherever" in the Romany language of the gypsies, a wherever that is possible anywhere and everywhere to anyone who is constantly moving from one place to another. L and I recently went into London to see the Cirque du Soleil performance by this name at the Royal Albert Theater (which was in itself otherworldly) and the themes of wandering and foreignness seemed especially true to me as I continue to live in a county that has now become both still strange and familiar. The show takes place in a world called Varekai deep within a forest at the summit of a volcano, a world inhabited by fantastical and absurd creatures. Into this world falls a solitary young man with wings who suddenly finds himself stranded and must now learn to rediscover life. Cirque calls their show a true tribute to those with the nomadic soul and to the passion of those whose travels lead them along the path to Varekai, a claim that is quite rightly made.

Rediscovering life is definitely true of all traveling. I'm going to loosely paraphrase Mr. Bate when I say that whenever we go somewhere new it simultaneously threatens who we are and encourages us to rediscover ourselves in a new way. A comparatively banal example of this (what isn't banal after the image of winged men falling into forests filled with extraordinary creatures? I now rue the day I didn't beg my parents to send my to circus school) is my newly developed taste for ethnic food. A rather large part of British cuisine is composed of a large variety of ethnic foods, mostly Indian, but many other varieties of well. Thank goodness, otherwise we'd be stuck with nothing but bangers and mash and other variations of my now least favourite vegetable. Last night C and I went out for Lebanese food, and to my pleasant surprise I recently found out that my new favourite restaurant in London is a Pakistani one that E took me to way out in the East End.

As a blonde and a redhead, E and I were extremely conspicuous in a neighborhood of almost entirely dark haired residents as we tried to find our way through a new section of the city until we eventually had to stop and ask for directions. Inside the restaurant, we were each one of the very few women who didn't cover their hair and while our waiters were incredibly nice (maybe too nice? It took us about ten minutes to order our food because we learned so much about our waiter in the meantime, and then he kept coming back to tell us about all the places he'd been. Very interesting until E went to the restroom and I found myself cornered into a long discussion all by myself) we couldn't help noticing how much we stood out. I mean, the place was a definite winner. We've already got plans to go back.

It's all about rediscovery.