Item: 1 camouflage jacket

My friend Christen and I bought camouflage jackets once at the Ranger Surplus store in Bethesda.  I love wearing this jacket; it makes me feel very capable and basic somehow, but I don't wear it much these days because I kind of fear it being taken as some sort of political statement.  It's a dangerous climate, I guess, or I'm just oversensitive.

The idea of camouflage is on my mind, however, because I'm noticing that there are many different environments in the world which I can shift between rather easily.  I know how to shovel snow.  I know how to drive on an LA freeway.  I know how to walk on the sidewalk in New Zealand.  I know how to pay at automated toll booths.  I know how to get gas in New Jersey.  I know how to open the doors on the Paris Metro.  Drop me anywhere, and I'll know what to do.

Of course, this isn't true, there are multiple places and environments where I would be lost and out of my element - Tennessee, maybe, or Beijing, Uzbekistan - but there are less of these than there once were.  It's a good thing, isn't it, to feel at home in the world?  Or is it somehow a loss, that it becomes harder to find myself in a place where I drink in the strangeness of every moment, where even the air I breathe seems different, where the world seems to be spinning to a stop and remaking itself before my eyes.  A feeling, in other words, that I associate with absolute and utter excitement.

The adjective 'sophisticated' never was an appealing word to me, for something like this very reason.  Isn't it the very definition of this word, when you no longer stand there every moment saying "Gee!  Wow!  Look at that!" but instead draw upon your knowledge and experience and glide off, going about your business.