By Me:

Bird Gun

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms:

“Maybe...you'll fall in love with me all over again."
"Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"
"Yes. I want to ruin you."
"Good," I said. "That's what I want too.”

Dear Father and Mother,

Let me start by being candid and forthright in my reasons for writing the two of you-- to thank each of you for your admittedly increased patronage of me as of late and tell you both why you should continue to pump capital into me. More than that, I also want to explain a little bit about why I think this support is a good, healthy thing.

Okay, fine, you’re right. The skeptics will say that this was prompted by the recent purchase of a round-trip, weekend ticket to Mallorca on the Visa Debit Card into which the two of you jointly deposit a monthly allowance, but you know what I say? Fuck the skeptics. Let’s dream big here, people. Let’s go for the gold. And anyways, plane really was the cheapest way to go. It was 60 Euros round trip, which if you stop to think about it isn’t very much at all. But the problem is that I just got back from Paris which I flew to at very inconvenient times to save money but still costed 110 Euros, which if you stop to think about too, really isn’t that much for me to get a chance to see Paris again now that I’m old enough to actually appreciate it. But it just adds up, you know? And then there was the train police, who told me that I had to pay a 40 euro fine because I didn’t have my ticket stub which I really had purchased, but also had thrown away before I got on the train because I figured it was only used to get me through the turnstile. I put up a fight with the train police guy, a valiant scene-causing one, because forty Euros is a lot of money-- that’s like sixty bucks-- but he said he’d get the real cops at the next station and let them handle it and even if I had done that and given myself a chance to get out of it I also had a flight to catch.

But I get it, I really do, you guys are very good and generous with me and I do realize it and I cannot thank you enough. I actually feel very guilty about it because you two have provided me with such a good and solid and happy upbringing, a part of which was founded on money. And it’s not that all or even most of that upbringing was founded on money, but sure, realistically, some of it was. You paid for great schools when I could have gone to good ones for free and I never had to ask if I could buy a book and my friends could always take whatever they wanted from the fridge. The scary part is that now a part of me feels like someday I need to provide my own kids with an equivalent standard of living, and that’s hard because each of you has done well, and it’s a lot to live up to. But it’s even scarier because already I feel like my choices of careers are narrowing down and my decisions are growing limited because to guarantee that I am able to give the standard of living that you have given me...well, that's a lot to guarantee. And I don't know if it's completely fair either, because in the field of science I think each of you was able to be what society defines as successful without compromising a whole lot on what you wanted to do for the world. For me I don't think it's that easy and I don't know if I can have both. So what if I want to do something where I can’t guarantee that success? Am I being selfish? Neither of you ran off on some strange tangential path and risked what I would later receive. For that matter, neither of you received half of what you would go on to give me. So why on earth would I have the right not to put myself in a position to give to my children at least as much as I have been given?

I don’t know. I still haven’t figured that one out.

So then, logically, I should break free right now, this second, because by accepting this kind of money from each of you I am encroaching on my own liberty since everything in this world, in some way or another, has to be paid back. And I’m not saying that has anything to do with either of you asking for anything back but I just mean it’s a weight in my stomach and I know and remember that it is there and I will for a long time, maybe forever. But breaking free monetarily isn’t that easy either, because money also means freedom and I want to be young and do things like go to Spain and Mallorca, where, by the way, you can do this really amazing thing called deep water soloing where you free climb up a cliff face that leans out over the ocean and if you fall you just fall into the sea. But I don’t know... It’s hard and I want to be independent but then I see a book on the kindle that I really want and will read and will learn from but it’s 11.95 with just the push of a button.

And I work, summers at least, I have since I was sixteen, and the job pays well and isn’t hard but somehow this last summer I was bored with it and being unhappy to make money I wasn't then using didn’t seem all that important; but I'm certainly using it now. And I made some, I did, but it ran out quickly, more quickly than I paid attention to, and then I really wanted that camera that would let me take photos to put on the blog, which I also think was a valid and useful and constructive purchase that came at a great time but that shit’s still expensive, you know? And these other kids, I’m looking around and not all but some planned better than I did, and I feel bad about that, really bad, but what should I do now that I'm here? To get a menial job now would undermine the investment you have already made in sending me here because the education I receive abroad is technically inferior, yes, but there are other sorts of education that are just as if not more important that have to be experienced and seen to be learned. So I'm working on learning those things but I'm not going to learn them washing dishes. And I'm not saying that there's nothing to learn from washing dishes but I am saying that it is a different lesson that even if, someday, I do end up having to learn-- now is not the right time for it.

I don’t know. I owe you each more than I can pay back anytime soon and there is still a lot of semester to go. So I offer my collective birthday and Christmas loot as a minor down payment on this loan of yours-- and really, there is nothing I would like more from either of you than being here, but still, that doesn’t quite do it. You shouldn’t even be obligated to give me those gifts so I shouldn’t be leveraging against them. That’s what caused the bubble to burst, right-- people investing their Christmas gifts before they had them? Is that what a derivative is? But it just shows that this is all a part of a bigger and more important realization-— you’ve been investing in me since I was born. Feeding me was an investment. Housing me. Clothing me. Educating me. You did all of those things, every single day for so many years, and I’m really only figuring it out now. How am I ever supposed to pay that back to you? I don't think I ever can and I don’t think I am ever completely meant to. Like I said, I'm supposed to pay it forward and perpetuate the human race and maybe even our relative wealth (because that is the easiest way to ensure survival and comfort and even some freedom in this world) but more than that, I think you really just gave it to me for me, to make me happy and secure for when you wouldn’t be able to do so for me anymore. It was an investment for the good of the investment itself. But how can I ever put that same stock in myself, that same faith, that same willingness to wait and watch and pour in more and more without ever seeing the numbers come out of the red or knowing that they will? That's a lot of pressure and I've felt the weight of it in every thing I've ever done that I didn't do for me.

So how do I pay you back if a literal compensation is not what either of you are after? That's a hard question and I've thought about it a lot. I think the answer has something to do with what I’m doing right now. This getting out. This freeing myself. I don’t think I’m going to live a prototypically normal life but I think it has the potential to be an interesting and maybe even special one. That’s not a normal opportunity and it was you two that gave it to me by giving me these experiences and the background to understand them (and a pretty clean slate as far as inheritable genetic diseases go) and teaching me how to think and challenge authority and ask questions. I wasn’t going to wander after college, I wasn’t going to be one of those kids, I was going to make money and be successful and get you a return on what you put in as quickly as I could so that every Christmas I could come home and show you the quarterly reports that my eighty hour weeks had brought you, but I’m not going to do that now because I've decided and or figured out that you invested in me and not what I would do; so now it's my job to figure that second part out.

So yeah, I know, the end of the line is coming soon, and it should. I’m getting a little too old to mooch off you two in the way I do. I respect and realize and accept that, because it’s a part of the investment too. It’s a part of teaching me to figure this stuff out on my own and if I talk about money like it doesn’t mean much or anything or everything then why don’t I really try to live without it for a while? That’s fair; that's reasonable. And when that day comes (and I know it’ll come soon, too soon, and that scares me) I will. I try now but it’s too damn hard to do when you have money that you can spend because, as you can clearly see, my thoughts are noble but my will is weak and I really want to go rock climbing in Mallorca, for which a 60 euro flight seems exceedingly reasonable. I have money that I can spend because you two are good and sweet parents that want me to have fun and grow and be safe and I try, I really try not to be expensive as I do those things but it is hard and I struggle and I am working on it. I feel like a fat kid who eats a big bowl of ice cream and enjoys it like they don’t enjoy anything else in the world but the whole time they're eating they feel guilty and gluttonous and they aren’t sure if it is even worth it but it's just too hard for them to stop while that silver spoon is still in their mouth.

Lots and lots of love,
Your son,
CL.

I was in Paris this weekend.

It is a city only like itself. I ate pigeon and saw paintings and on Saturday night I wound up at a bar that was far too much of a ‘scene’ for me to enjoy or fit in. I met a Swedish architect who didn’t seem to like it either and was a little bit crazy in a good, unfiltered way. She worked for a famous architect (who I had not heard of but the others I was with had) who she said was an asshole even if he was a genius. She wanted to leave Paris as soon as possible and were it not for her work she would have already done so. She said the city was dirty, its people arrogant and smelly, and the unnecessarily socialized infrastructure generally inefficient. She told me the other places she had lived, which were many, and gave me a reason why each one of them was better.

The next person I met was an Australian fashion designer who had moved to Paris six months ago to start her own fashion line. Admittedly I had met other people after the Swede and before the Australian but they, like everything else I exclude from my memories, do not immediately suit my simple and basic literary intents. Anyways, the fashion designer was dressed very fashionably and I asked if she was wearing clothes from her own line. She told me no, that what she designed was much fancier, and then she wrinkled the end of her nose just enough to tell me she was displeased with the question. I asked her how long she was planning on staying in Paris and she said forever. That’s a long time I told her, which I thought was a pretty good answer. She said that since she was a little girl playing dress up she had always dreamed of living in Paris and now that was actually doing it her life was like that dream. She said it in the way that a bad actress reads a line in an okay play. She asked if I spoke French and when I said no the look on her face made it clear that that was the last straw. I said bye and left before she could do the same.

Then I met some Wharton Business School guys. One was from L.A. and the other was French. The French guy seemed like a sleazy French guy and the one from L.A. reminded me of that kid in elementary school who would always buy the old toy the day before everybody else brought in their new toy. As a segue to talk about his salary, he asked the French guy about the appropriateness in France of discussing salary. The Frenchman said it was completely off limits and then promptly told his. They seemed awfully young to be so boring. For that matter, they seemed awfully stupid to be so rich. They gave me friendly, warm goodbyes and invited me to meet up with them at the club where they were headed. I said I’d maybe see them there but first I had to see about some things. Then I took the metro and walked up a hill to stand with all the others who had already done the same and look and watch and smile at how the city lit up at night.

Last night I had my first run-in with the Barcelona police.

I mentioned to my host brother that I was going to meet up with some girls I wanted to impress and he offered me his moto for the night. Needless to say, I obliged his hospitality and accepted. He gave me the keys and a goofy helmet and I was gone. I left ten minutes late and tried to time it so that I would make a grand entrance: while I was puttering my way there I was busy imagining whipping off my helmet to gasps, squeals of delight, and maybe even a little bit of applause.

However, before I can go any further with this story I need to explain how and why I am currently in possession of a magic token. Four or five days ago my host mother presented me with a buckeye nut. It is brown and smooth and shiny and feels and looks exactly like a magic token should. She told me that her father (who is 91 and she visits every day in the hospital) used to always give her buckeye nuts to carry, saying they were good luck. In and of itself, her giving me one was a very sweet and thoughtful gesture. The strange part is that when I was little my Argentine grandfather would give me buckeye nuts as well, and he also said they were for good luck. Actually, he would say something in thick, heavy Spanish that my mother would then translate, but regardless, the nuts were for luck.

What makes it weirder is that these nuts are one of the few things I actually remember about my grandpa. I remember the thick, heavy accent and I remember how he smelled old (in retrospect, I think it was his aftershave). I also remember how his drooping mustache reminded me of a walrus and how his whiskers were as stiff as the bristles of a toothbrush and would scratch against my cheek when he kissed me.

But really, more than just about anything else, I remember the smooth, brown, gnarled, shiny, hard buckeye nuts he would give me before he smiled his toothy grin, like they were a secret just between us.

Because of this, when my host mom gave me one and I held it in my hand, I was both thankful and a little caught off guard. It reminded me of whiskers and aftershave and I started carrying it in my pocket because that’s where it seemed like it belonged. Then I promptly forget it was there.

Now we get to the night of correfoc, where I had foolishly taken my camera. Not only did I have the fire to contend with but I also had to watch out for an endless mob of Barcelona (city with the most thieves in the world) residents out to enjoy the night. I eyed up suspicious characters; I shielded my camera from the fire with my body; I held it like it was a baby, and an expensive one at that.

In short, I was vigilant and responsible, and after correfoc we went to a bar for a beer to celebrate our casualty free fire-run. My friends put their jackets down in the corner where we were playing darts and I hid my camera under them. When I got my beer I talked to bartender for a while because I recognized his Argentine accent. I introduced myself, tipped him well (tipping is not customary in Spain and I don’t normally do it), and left. We finished our game of darts, my friends grabbed their jackets, and we went on our way. When I was already across the street I heard somebody yelling my name: it was the bartender and he was holding my camera.

I thanked him hugely, shook his hand many times, and gave myself a minute to contemplate how phenomenally stupid I am-- it was hardly enough time.

God had I been lucky. What if anybody else had seen the camera first? What if I had gotten a different bartender? What if I hadn’t tipped, or hadn't asked his name? If I were to play the scenario out a thousand times more, I’m not sure I would ever get the camera back again.

Then I remembered—the nut!

I pulled it out of my pocket triumphantly and showed the girls I was with (and would later feel inclined to drive a moto to impress). I explained how and why the buckeye was lucky and gathered two things from their reactions.

First, they clearly didn’t believe that the nut was actually magic.

Second, they definitely thought it was weird that I carried it in my pocket.

I handed it to one of the girls and told her to hold it for a little while. When I took it back I said that now, if she looked for it, something lucky would happen to her in the next couple days. I didn’t know if I was kidding and neither did she.

The next night when I saw her she was excited:

“The nut,” she said, “it works!”

She told me she had been in a cab with her friend and had left her phone in it. The cab driver had heard her call the friend she was with by her name so when he found the phone he had looked up the friend's name in her contacts, called her, and promptly arranged to meet up and return the phone. Now that's service.

“Told you,” I said to her.

So, back story established, let's go back to me puttering along on my host-brother’s moto, dreaming big dreams about small things. Then there’s a forgotten turn signal, and a siren, and two cops asking for license while I try to casually figure out how the hell the kickstand works on this god-damn-good-for-nothing-going-to-put-me-in-Spanish-jail moped.

I decide my chances are better if I don’t speak Spanish. They ask me if I know what I did and I answer with the name of the street where I live. They ask me if I know where the turn signals are on the bike—-I don’t-- and I tell them that I’m. a. student. at. the. University. here. to. practice. my. Spanish.

They exchange glances and it seems to me like they’re in a hurry.

They have no idea what to make of a Delaware driver’s license. They ask me if I have my passport—I don’t—and I hand them my credit card.

They look at each other again.

Have you been drinking one asks me, slowly, leaning in to smell my breath.

“No, sir” I say, and it’s the truth.

“Have you been smoking?” the other asks. He brings his forefinger and thumb together, holds them to his lips, and inhales.

“No, sir” I tell him, holding eye contact. That's true, too.

They turn towards each other and talk deliberately quickly. One asks the other what they should do. He says they should fine me: it’s 200 Euros. The first says he doesn’t even know how to fill out the paperwork for somebody with my license. The other agrees, and says it will be a pain since I don’t understand what’s going on and they will need to bring in another cop who speaks English.

I nod and smile the smile of the good natured but dim foreigner.

They're quiet for a little while, look at each other again, and then nod a nod to one another that lets me know I've gotten off the hook. Phew.

They turn towards me and speak very slowly:

"This was your first and last free pass," one says.

"Drive safe," says the nicer one.

I keep nodding and they turn and walk back to their car.

“Buenas noches señores,” I yell, a little too excited, but my grin is real now.

They look back and smile at me like I'm funny, get into their car, and drive away. I wait until they’re through the next traffic light before I start the bike up because I still have no fucking clue how to work the turn signals.

I reach into my pocket and touch the buck-eye to make sure it’s still there. Of course it is: I’m too lucky to lose it.

Last night I went to correfoc.

In Catalan corre means run and foc means fire. Together, in English, they mean fire-run. It was part of the closing day of the festivals of Mercè, a celebration of the patron saint of the city that is said to be the wildest weekend of the year. There is no way correfoc would be legal in the United States. There is no way it should be legal here.

I wore shorts and carried a camera because I did not appreciate how crazy Catalans are: I was spectacularly underdressed and underprepared. Everybody else showed up wearing hats, scarves, hooded sweatshirts, long pants, and ski goggles or sunglasses. Floats decorated like dragons and people dressed like demons went up and down the street shooting off fireworks and giant sparklers. There was loud music. People screamed. There was a lot of fire and at least as much running. It was a bizarre and exhilarating experience.

The sparks burnt my bare legs and a couple times strangers brushed smoldering embers out of my bird’s nest head of hair. When it was all over I realized how many holes had been burnt through my shirt. I also realized I now had a way cooler shirt.

I’ve conceded, decided, and realized that both the quality and quantity of my posts has decreased since I’ve come to Spain.

I believe this is because I am no longer truly traveling. Rather, I am living in another country. I have a mother here who cooks me nice, hearty meals. I have a brother whose Macbook charger I sometimes borrow. I have a university where I take classes that except for the language difference are much the same as the classes I take back home. Really, I am enjoying myself immensely.

I read a lot. I practice my Spanish. I write some short stories. I drink coffee or a beer outside cafes in the late afternoon and watch the people who walk by and imagine who they are. I’ve become used to girls in high heels that drive mopeds and the noise in the streets when Barca has a soccer game (sorry, fútbol). It is all very charming and interesting but I don't know if I'd call it thrilling. That’s okay. That’s fine. Actually, that’s great: I’m having a safe, enriching, and wholesome intercultural experience. But in having this, in being here, I am in no way unique or, for that matter, particularly interesting.

I’m a college kid whose parents can afford to send him abroad (speaking of which-- mom, dad: thanks!). I can write, but I need something to write about.

So, where does this leave us? What exactly am I saying? Am I quitting the blog? Bowing out early? Going all Bjorn Borg on you guys?

Not quite.

I just want to be candid with what my intentions are moving forward. When I started this, there were a couple things I wanted to get out of it.

First, I wanted to let friends and family know what I was up to. When you could all read and experience some of what I had seen and done, it made me feel like you weren’t quite as far away, and that felt good.

Second, I wanted to document my travels and practice my writing. The public nature of something like a blog encouraged this. I was motivated to keep writing because people kept reading what I wrote, so thank you all for that.

Third, I wanted to see if I could make this any more than those first two pieces-- and in some ways I think I have. To all of you I’ve never met in countries I’ve never been to: hello, I’m Curtis Lee. It took me a while to show a picture with my face on it not because I enjoyed anonymity (I did) but because I didn’t want you all to realize how young I am (almost 21). I thought it would invalidate the whole enterprise but so much for that I suppose.

Still, I haven’t come any closer to answering my question: where does this leave us? What’s going to change?

Not much. So far this has pretty exclusively been a travel blog (of sorts) except for that awkward pubescent stage when it was a quotes blog (of sorts). Now, it’s neither. It’s just my blog. Hopefully I’ve written enough interesting things that you all trust me to keep doing so, and if this means changing the focus a little, I hope you can deal with that. If you can’t, I probably never entertained you much anyways. I’ve been writing some fiction so now and then I’ll be tossing that up here—something I already tested out the waters with a couple days ago. And absolutely I’ll keep writing about when I travel or experience something interesting and different. And then, just to give myself more than a little liberty, I might also write about just about anything else: how I’m feeling, a thought, a quote, etc.

The title Wayward Gentry is not supposed to be an idea or a style or a clever disparate combination of two words. Rather, I think it describes a certain group of people. I would like to think and certainly like to say that money does not mean a whole lot to me, and it doesn’t. But I’m silly and naïve and plain stupid if I think that I could be where I am right now, writing what I am, if I hadn’t had parents who were willing to invest the capital to cultivate me to do so.

There is a strange paradox between wealth and freedom. Having money grants you liberty, but in order to gain the liberty that comes from being able to buy yourself a little chunk of land where you are autonomous enough that you can tell the rest of the world to go fuck itself, you have to sacrifice a lot of that freedom and go out into the world to make enough money to buy the chunk of land in the first place. Here’s where the children of wiser parents who have already confronted and compromised and done something with their lives come in: the kid only gets plugged into half of that equation, at least until they’re self-sufficient. This is why it is so damn easy for us (us being the kids) to talk about ideals and values and how we’re going to live our lives—we haven’t lived them yet; we haven’t had to compromise ideals; and we haven’t had to blemish our values. We stand on a hill in a flood and yell about how people should be bailing water.

It’s hypocritical and stupid, yes, but it’s also exactly what we should be doing at this age. Because if we don’t, if we don’t question the system and how it functions and who pedals the million little bikes that makes the one great wheel turn, well then, we’re just going to buy into the whole thing in bulk without choosing which ideals we are not willing to compromise and which values we are unwilling to blemish.

That is exactly why it’s important that we are wayward, that we get out and see the world and begin to understand how different and the same all of it really is. It makes us question and think about and decide which ideas and beliefs truly belong to us and which are just a part of what we’ve been taught and told and taken for granted. The two are not the same (unless you attend Vanderbilt University, zing!) and it's up to each of us to figure out where they're different.

So, if you were wondering, that’s what I think of the title to mean-- the name is an oxymoron and difficult to reconcile but then again, so is a lot of growing up.