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| Sometimes on a rainy foggy day, we can see certain things more clearly. The St. Lawrence River from an overlook near the Plains of Abraham, Quebec City. |
I haven't posted a blog since August 18, a few days before we said goodbye to our tomatoes and peppers in Oregon and hit the road. It isn't that I don't think about writing every single day, but I get overwhelmed with photos and "material" and underwhelmed with reliable wifi and/or strong cell service. Hence images and words pile into a muddled mess in my brain and on my computer, and finding a focus eludes me. Even when I do land on a hook, as we used to say in the newspaper business, driving a few hundred miles several days a week and traveling in close quarters with another person doesn't exactly encourage productivity.
When I do find time and place to write, I try to avoid the "we went there and did this, and then we went there and did that" as blog narrative. So when traveling in wifi territory, I do the easy thing: post photos on Facebook with brief descriptions and move on. (If you're interested in seeing the photos, please be my FB friend.)
But something happened this inclement morning in old Quebec City that gave me an idea about how to handle too much stimulation.
Paul and I decided to hell with the weather, pulled on our Eddie Bauer raincoats, unfurled our travel umbrellas and ventured into the heavy rain. A few minutes later I started to smile and talk to myself.
You're doing the traveling you've wanted to do for decades. You're healthy. You have a good man. A good van. A good plan. Quebec City is charming, picturesque, historic, beautiful, art-filled and stimulating. What a great day to be alive!
I skipped a bit but stifled myself as my Birkenstocks were soggy and the straps were stretched and my footing wasn't solid. As usual, Birks were the only shoes I had with me.
We were pretty much alone, PK and me, strolling in a downpour from our little boutique hotel in Old Quebec City to the nearby Plains of Abraham. We reached a shelter with a viewpoint down the St. Lawrence River and, in the opposite direction, a look at the Plains. We learned that a pivotal battle occurred here between the French and the British in 1759. It ended with a British victory over France, contributing to the formation of Canada.
The plains had belonged to a farmer named Abraham. No mention of the original First Nation people whose land it was originally. Canadians did the same as we Americans - stole the land and all but killed off the people indigenous.
Ok. My happy mood was knocked down a notch. There had been plenty of bloodshed here, deep dark history of human beings settling issues with killing, taking, exploiting. I had to pee.
I descended the deserted stairs to a public restroom. A scowling muscular forty-something woman with a blur of greying hair on her shaved head emerged from the restroom. It was just the two of us, and as we passed, I nodded and said Hi. I wasn't inviting, or expecting, anything more than a return greeting, one human being's respectful acknowledgement of another.
She stopped and glared at me.
Do I have to say hi to every fucking person?! She spat the words.
I stood stock still, my mouth agape.
She wasn't finished.
Fuck you! Who do you think you are? And fuck Christ, she continued. I'm so sick of people, and you are disgusting. Fuck you!
She was still spewing anger and hate as she strode into the rain. I made my way into the restroom talking to myself, again. Wow. What was that about? I can't believe that just happened. And so on.
Where I come from in small-town rural Oregon, and earlier in life, small-town Midwest, greeting strangers is as ordinary as toast with jam. It is sweet and harmless. It is not an affront or attack on privacy but an affirmation of a moment of shared time and place.
A few minutes later, when I told PK what transpired, he said he'd noticed the woman muttering something as she passed him, head down.
I'd taken the verbal attack personally, but he took a different view.
She was bald, he said. Maybe she's a cancer patient. Or maybe she's mentally ill.
Yes, perhaps mentally ill, I concurred. I don't believe that being a cancer patient explains bad behavior. The bottom line though, was that she was filled with anger and hate. She would have liked to kill me. I've never been confronted by such a person. But then I've been spared much of the pain and sorrow that life dishes out, lucky in so many ways.
The encounter was a travel moment - a surprising and unexpected result of being out and about in the world, as opposed to sticking close to home. A travel moment is one that can elevate, elate, thrill or educate. Or all of the above. Like the time we swam with whale sharks in La Paz, or when we visited the sacred cremation site in Kathmandu, or when I made eye contact with wild gorillas in Uganda.
But a travel moment can also take you someplace you don't want to go, proving that travel isn't just about driving around looking at pretty scenery and eating local foods, but also venturing into foreign cultures and lives, places you may not choose but there you are.
In any case, you learn and grow and are somehow challenged.
What does this have to do with Ordinary Life? More travel moments, past and future, will be shared here. I still want to revisit the sacred cremation site and perhaps the whale sharks, and other consequential moments that have become lost in the blur of passing time. Thanks for hanging with me.
Happy travels, wherever they may take you.
