When Phil and I travel abroad, we don’t really buy souvenirs, or much of anything to bring home. The one exception is that wherever we go, we look for a small mirror that we can hang in our very tiny bathroom. It has to have a material or motif that represents the country. When we started our collection, it was relatively easy to find mirrors, or at least a picture frame that we could fill with a mirror, but they are nearly impossible to find now. I have had to resort to outfitting various interesting things we find with little scraps of mirrors. I find that the process of the hunt makes us think about what characterizes a place. Not only do we get to see our little collection every day, but I love the idea of seeing myself through a frame of travel. I travel to see the world, but also to better understand my place in it.
Based on my last post, can you spot the mirror from Japan? Can you correctly identify the other mirrors’ countries of origin?
In order of acquisition:
- The keyhole shape, mid-right, is a classic Moroccan motif.
- The round leather frame, lower right, is Argentinian.
- The painted Buddha from Thailand has doors that open to reveal a mirror.
- On the Tour de Liz (southwestern US trip), we got the cross in Albuquerque.
- Under the light, the rectangular frame has fancy paper from Italy.
- The oval fleur-de-lis is from France.
- Mid-lower left, the stone (resin) frame echoes the prehistoric sites we visited in Ireland.
- You can’t see the maple leaves on the tiny mirror in the lower right, but that’s Canada.
- The cork frame in the upper right is from Portugal.
- The Viking helmet, with glittery mirror eyes, came from Denmark.
- On the same trip, we got the reindeer horn from Sweden and glued on a rugged mirror shard.
- We were hard-pressed in Scotland, but the round pewter mirror with a line through it is ringed with a Celtic knot.
- The little round mirror in the upper right is mounted on a cross-section of a Glastonbury thorn from England.
- The little mirror with a handle in the lower left has daffodils, the national flower of Wales.
- Obviously, the vermillion torii gate is our newest acquisition from Japan.
The other thing I collect on our travels is words. I try to come up with one adjective that reflects the people or the country itself. Yes, it is reductive to summarize a country with a single word, but it makes me think about what stands out as unique wherever we are. What words would you choose for the places you have been? Do you want to try to match mine for the countries I listed above? (The words are completely unrelated to the mirrors and are based on how I experienced a place. I also make myself choose a different word for each country, so some obvious words may have been claimed by countries we visited before the mirror collection and so they don’t appear here.)
- Adventuresome
- Efficient
- Exotic
- Foreign
- Friendly
- Gregarious
- Passionate
- Proper
- Relaxed
- Reliable
- Reserved
- Rugged
- Rumpled
- Societal
I didn’t include one for the U.S. Southwest, but since it is where I grew up, I’d say “elemental” because it is what I knew first in my life. If you want to guess in the comments, I’ll tell you my answers next time! (For some perspective, Phil was with me on all these trips and only matched about 50% of my words!)
One of these days, I promise, I’ll get back to cooking with Ben. Until then, I’ll just be here lingering a little longer in travel reflections.