Paths

From one side of the Mediterranean to the other, from one continent to another, snapshots of memory give substance to travel stories. During the narrative, two voices stand out: that of the author, an anthropologist, and that of the woman at different ages of her life. The recipient of the stories is a very young high school student in the year of her entry to upper secondary school. The desire to go elsewhere that explodes in adolescence accompanies us forever. The author rediscovers it as an adult through the experience of travels undertaken in different parts of the world: Jordan as a field of research and ultimately a place of the heart, remote islands in the southern Caribbean, Jerusalem a place of mystery and discovery, Agra in India as a symbol of marital love, the sea near home and the charm of ruins near and far. The curiosity, audacity, amazement, recklessness and mystery that accompany the journey represent steps on a journey that leads to discovering otherness as part of ourselves. In the background are the events that have profoundly affected the lives of all of us over the last twenty years.