Backwards We Go
Should travel be a forward movement, always? Or can it look backwards, seep into our memory recesses, and fish out pearls from long forgotten years? Can travel do more than just expose ourselves to different peoples and cultures? Or could it at times be more like a time machine taking us to our past?
These were the question that I meditated upon while waiting outside La Glace, a Danish patisserie from the 1870s, to get a pastry. In front of me, despite the pandemic, a queue of people waited to get in, snaked around the corner of the patisserie. I studied those who stood in front – most were past their prime, their heads predominantly white. There were a few children, holding the hands of their grandparents. Breaking the monotony were a few tourists like myself.
I had come to La Glace on the recommendation of a good friend, Jan. Jan had suggested that I try the hot chocolate at La Glace. “It’s the best hot chocolate you can get in Denmark,” he had told me, “And you even get a free refill!”. It was Jan’s grandparents who used to bring him to this patisserie, nestled in a side street along the main walking street of Copenhagen, called Stroget. Now he brings his sons here every once in a while.
As my turn came, I stepped into the building that had frozen in time. The inside walls were wrapped in a green wallpaper, the seating area marked with padded chairs and marble tables. On the walls hung pictures from La Glace’s long history, and from the ceiling hung lamps made of frosted glass. The interiors were deliberately kept in the same character as when the shop first opened in 1870, I was told, as I settled on an upholstered sofa in one of the many rooms that the patisserie had.
“Why do I see so many old people today?” I asked the young waitress who brought me the famous hot chocolate drink. She was dressed in a white shirt and a green apron - a uniform that has also stayed consistent with time. “Well, it’s not only today,” she replied. The elderly come here to relive their childhood and bring their young grandchildren to create memories of their birthdays. “The people you see bring their grandchildren here. Look,” she pointed out to the little kids digging into their cakes. “La Glace is not just any patisserie but a tradition in Denmark. It reminds people of their best years, I suppose” she said.
As I sat there, sipping my hot chocolate, I thought of my own childhood. Of the days when my parents would hold my hand and walk me to the neighbourhood ice-cream shop to celebrate every small achievement I had. Sitting at La Glace, I wondered what happened to the ice-cream shop that I visited in my childhood, and the elderly woman who served scoops of ice-cream, always wearing a smile.
A space opened up inside of me. A desire to revisit the places of my childhood, to relive those experiences that are still nestled deep in my memory, came up. Could I travel again to my childhood, I wondered. All these years I had been travelling to learn something new, to explore cultures not mine, to add yet another experience to the ever-expanding repository.
But is that the only purpose of travelling? Shouldn’t travel take us back in time also, to experience what we have experienced before, albeit with the eyes that have seen so much more now? I have believed thus far strongly in the forward motion. Isn’t that what life is all about after all? Or so I thought.
I sat there in a world far from where I had grown up. Around me, I saw people still tethered to a small, yet tangible, piece of their childhood. I felt I had no such place to go to – a corner of the world that reminded me of where I have come from. I had left it all behind to continually move forward.
Perhaps, now is the time to pause a little. Even step back. Step back to explore those leftover memories and find their material reminders. That’s the journey I will take next!
