Evelyn Klebert

Well this past week I sort of slipped off the face of the earth for about eight days.

Being a resident of New Orleans along with scores of others it was suggested “strongly” that we evacuate. Luckily we got out Friday before the mad rush and crunch of traffic. While my time in exile in many ways resembled a vacation, absconding to a lovely house on the lake out in the woods in Northern Louisiana, there is something about having to leave your home and not knowing what’s happening to it that makes your nerves walk the razor’s edge. And of course at times the house was well-stuffed with thirteen people, four dogs, and a cat and occasionally no electricity which didn’t help much.
But of course the question hanging over all our heads was always what would we be returning to. Knock wood there seems to be no greatly consequential damage except some dried out house plants, and a refrigerator of lost food from many days with no electricity and a downed basketball hoop outside.
So how does one pass the time in exile? Hmm.
1. Finally begin to read The Lord of the Rings. Frodo is setting off on his journey to Mordor while I am returning to my Shire.
2. Learn to knit, somewhat badly. In great need of many more lessons.
3. Play Clue often to the point that you really don’t care who killed Mr. Body, just are very sure he had it coming.
4. Watch a lot of pretty sunsets on the lake– take many many pictures.
5. Do a whole lot of Tarot card readings.
6. And sleep, sleep, sleep. Especially when the electric goes out.

Seems like I should have pulled out a bit of wisdom from the experience. Let’s see be flexible, don’t sweat the small stuff, and how true it is that we’ve no idea what is coming round the corner.
To all those who really had to rough it during evacuation I am sending all my best wishes. And I am so grateful and so happy to be back home.

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign. – Robert Louis Stevenson

It is a perplexing problem why as human beings we cling so desperately to what is familiar, even at the expense of our own peace of mind. Even in a landscape of the fantastical, as in An Uneasy Traveler, the main character Aubrey Mason who has at her fingertips access to an unseen world that lays largely hidden from the general populace falls into this very compelling trap. As a psychic and a sensitive who can lay open the connective thread that binds us all together, she instead chooses to live her own life largely in isolation separated from human personal contact.

I chose to explore this very common phenomenon in the landscape of a fictional world. Self-fulfillment versus perceived safety, the comfort of the familiar. To say Aubrey Mason is in a rut covers it minimally. To say she has crafted a self-imposed exile designed to insulate her from pain is a bit more to the point. Rather than focusing on her uniqueness, I choose to examine her as a representative of the world and of the not unique human desire to cling to familiarity and avoid change at all cost. It can be seen on an individual level; it can be seen on a global level. Countries less interested in walking into a new world, but instead fighting to the death to preserve old, untenable ideas. The unknown does indeed have the potential for pain, failure, but the familiar that is disintegrating and inflexible has the guarantee of stagnation. As in the case of Aubrey Mason, there must be growth or there is no future. But sometimes and how often we resist what we know must be.