most travel, lot of
expatriate life under
heading “trespassing”
There is also an existential, parasitical, rootless quality to being an expatriate, which can be dizzying:
You are both somebody and nobody, often merely a spectator.
I always felt in my bones that wherever I went, I was an alien.
That I could not presume or expect much hospitality, that I had nothing to offer except a willingness to listen, that wherever I was, I had no business there and had to justify my intrusion by writing about what I heard.
Most travel, and a lot of expatriate life, can be filed under the heading “Trespassing.”
From the article, “The Hard Reality American Expats Quickly Learn” by Paul Theroux in the New York Time, Jan. 5, 2025.
There is no there there and there is no way out of here.
No Haiku For You 