Traces of travel

In 1829, Felix Mendelssohn traveled to Scotland - and began to develop the ideas for a symphony that he eventually completed in 1842. Mendelssohn sometimes referred, later in his life, to the piece - opus 56, in A minor - as his Scotch symphony, and musical historians often agree that both the opening theme of the first movement and the finale reflect (or echo, or betray, depending on your their exact position) the influences of Scottish culture on the young composer.

For, after all, who can travel and not be affected by what they see, and hear? Travel alters our mental set, giving us new schema and points of reference - which we then employ in making sense of future experiences.  Durer's works, after his 1495 trip to Italy, imply the influence of Pollaiuolo; Ibn Tulun's time in Samarra may well have resulted, decades later, in the spiralling stair of his Cairene minaret. In moving from zone to zone, we are not empty beakers; rather, we carry what we have learned with us. And, for a family who recently spent two months in South Africa, the phenomenon is sometimes crystal clear.

Yesterday, I took Cleo down to D.C. for a short overnight with old friends, who have a two-year-old named Harper. At one point, I was at home alone with the two girls, for about 15 minutes; in that time, Harper began to wonder where her mother was, and peered out the window. "Don't worry," said Cleo, trying to be helpful. "Your mommy will be here now-now."

Now-now? It's a wonderful South Africanism that L. had first taught me, several years ago. In the relaxed tempo of Africa, now typically implies, as a future marker, slow eventuality. If someone promises to send you that letter now, you might get it in a week or more. Just now, meanwhile, implies a heightened urgency: it's on my mind, friend. And now-now is truly emphatic: it implies real imminence. It's what nursery school teachers, for instance, will say to calm crying children who wonder when their mommies might pick them up.

Which is how, more or less, Cleo explained her use of the term, after I asked her about it. "They said that in Sugar and Spice," she told me. Yes. And those passages in Mendelssohn? They played those, or their close cousins, in Scotland.