Being Vacilando

Travels With Charley - Penguin Classics

Driving through northern Maine in the late autumn of 1960, John Steinbeck reflected on his planned road trip of discovery across America, still in its infancy. He recalled that the Spanish have a word that has no plausible counterpart in the English language. It is the verb vacilar, its present participle being vacilando. One might be tempted to translate them as "to vacillate," or "vacillating," but it does not mean this at all. This would imply that one has no goal or purpose in mind. If one is vacilando, it means that he or she - the vacilador - has a general inclination toward a place but is going nowhere in particular at the moment nor is there great care given to whether or not one actually arrives. Steinbeck tells his reader that this has become a state of being throughout Mexico and recalls walking the streets of Mexico, "We would choose some article almost certain not to exist there and the diligently try to find it."

A vacilador appears to be very much similar to the flâneur in France; one who does not expect to arrive at any particular place with any specific plan in mind. In Steinbeck’s instance, he and his dog Charley wanted to travel to the northern most point in Maine, on the Canadian border, before beginning his long westward trek across the northern tier of states to his native California. Which roads he would ultimately take, which places he would visit, and whatever would occur along the way . . . and when and if he would complete the journey, would remain a mystery.

As I spend my summer in Maine, I look forward to exploring more of the state’s lesser known points of interest. Where I will go, and what I will choose to explore . . . and when I will eventually post my thoughts here, is anyone’s guess. Life is an enigma.
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John Steinbeck. Travels with Charley: In Search of America. New York: The Viking Press, 1962.