Putting it in context........

I recognize context better now. As a younger person, I had never  faced some experiences that have now happened to me multiple times in the course of my sixty-plus years. We learn from those experiences, at least  if we're paying attention.

Driving to the mountains of North Carolina from Florida for the first time should have been a piece of cake. It's only 8 hours or so, and I once drove from Florida to Colorado in a little over 48 hours, so no worries. Right? The only problem was that we arrived after dark. An unknown location, at the top of a mountain ridge reached only after putting the car in 4-wheel drive and inching up a narrow, one lane road to the top. The person who owns the cabin told us "It's the sixth cabin from the top of the ridge" and it was very dark that night. (Go ahead; think about that for a minute. I can see your face now.....)


Put that trip in context and I've never tried it again. We leave home in the morning one day, stay overnight along the way, and then finish the trip the next day, when the sun is still out and I can see well enough to navigate up that ridge where the cabin is located.

Context.....

It also raises its head when those who don't have the longevity we enjoy try to pull a fast one on us. We understand context when a 30-something personal trainer makes continued excuses for being late for appointments (for which I was paying him well), with things like, "Oh, I lost track of time" or "I didn't realize it would take so long to get my hair cut" or "Did you know I went back to school? I was studying for a test and forgot about the time." (In other words, he forgot about his customer, completely or simply irresonsibly, or both.) And the excuses always came along with him AFTER he showed up late for every appointment....yes, EVERY one. Sometimes he never showed up at all.

The context is rich with meaning. He didn't call ahead of time to say something like, "My little one is sick today and I have to take her to the doctor" or a similar reason that, within the context of our own experiences in a life replete with them, makes sense and everyone has had happen at some point.

Context matters. And we get much better at putting life in it as we age. We also hold others accountable within the context of a situation, too.

We are old(er) and we aren't to be toyed with.

I now have a new personal trainer, by the way.

Context, context......

“Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events.” 

Robert Penn

 

Road trip!

It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.”
  Mark Twain

Do things move farther away the older we get?


It used to be a one-day road trip from my home now to the town where I attended college. You know the one, right? Their football team just won a National Championship. But we'll get back to that topic another day.

It is only three hours away. No problem at all to jump in the car, head west on the most boring interstate in the country and head over to attend a game. When it was over, we'd hop back in the car and come home. There might have even been a stop for dinner at one of those dark exit ramps along the way. Then, it would be midnight or later before the headlights hit the garage door back home, but hey....who cared? That still gave us 5 or 6 hours before the clock alarmed us out of bed--literally--so we could get to work on time.

Nostalgia is painful. 

Here's how it goes today. All because things get moved farther and farther away as we age.

You have to consider the time to drive over there (and the interstate is STILL boring after all these years), PLUS then you must add 4 or 5 pit stops to that itinerary. You discover early on which rest areas have the cleanest, safest bathrooms. They become favorite haunts, much like bars or diners used to be for us. You never pass one by without stopping. And your destination just got a little farther away.

Finally you get there, and parking is the next mountain to climb. It's not realistic any more to park 2 miles away and hike on over to the venue. In the olden days (before we were the olden ones), not only did we walk it, we carried coolers, chairs, jackets, and sometimes children the whole way without breaking a sweat. That stadium is farther away now, right? Now we need to a pay a fortune to park somewhere in the back 40 and ride the shuttle.

Keep in mind, though, that all we have accomplished so far is getting there. The event happens, and it's great. But when the clock on the scoreboard ticks down to 0:00, the reverse of the whole trip kicks into gear. Notice I didn't say "high" gear. That gear got stuck about two hours ago as we waited in line for a restroom in the stadium, which....yep....got much farther away from our seats than it used to be. All those steps, all those (young) people walking and texting and pushing and.....

Someone call and get a hotel room. Please. 

 

How can I help?

On our way back home after a cruise to Bermuda, we stopped for lunch at one of those eateries hunkered down along interchanges every where. You know the ones. The servers shout their orders to the cook. The one standing two feet away. 

              For the next 30 minutes, we listened to a young woman chatter about her after-work plans, as she stood stationary for long periods of time. Then she and the manager, a woman not much older than this young chatty person, argued about what she was supposed to be doing. All in full view of a captive audience of hungry travelers, including me. The cook was the only male employee present in a crew of about six, and he kept quiet, probably for good reason. 

           The contrast between this group of service folks and the crew on the ship we had just left was stark. We had been catered to and waited on for over a week by a multi-national group of young people who worked together like the gears of an expensive Swiss timepiece. They smiled, they chatted politely with their customers, they anticipated what we might need. And then they provided it. There was no extraneous conversation between them. No complaining about the boss. No wailing about how unfair life is, or what they were planning when they got off duty. We were the center of their universe, at least while they were on the clock.

           José from Haiti made orange juice every morning in the buffet area. This twenty-six year old can’t possibly like orange juice as much as it seemed, but he made all of us want it as soon as our eyes opened every day. We sat at a table nearby, just to watch him greet people as they came by, and soon he was addressing them by name. He said that he chose this job because “Everyone has to work,” and it provided a good income. He hasn’t married yet, because being away from home and family for months at a time is tough, he said. 

           Did you know that when you leave your cabin on a ship, the steward cleans up after you? Every time. Leslie from Trinidad and Tobago was our steward and she agreed with José. She has two children back home and after eight months at sea, she is looking forward to two months off soon. But she is providing for her family.

          The cruise industry ranks high on the list of pastimes for many people, but especially for older people who have amassed the means and time to travel in style. There were over 2000 people on this majestic vessel, and it isn’t even one of the larger ships sailing the seas today. When travelers mark their customer satisfaction surveys, one of the top scores has to rest on the fact that everything is done for you while on board. And it is done efficiently, quietly, and with a smile. 

           Any other service-oriented business could take a lesson. Beginning with that restaurant on I-95.

Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.

Walt Disney

Driving into the sunset.....

Traveling takes on a different perspective as we age. Some people sell their homes, buy huge RVs, and hit the road. Some become cruise kings and queens, sailing dozens of times every year. And, let's face it, many people today can't afford to go anywhere.

But for me, the main thing to know is that I don't fly any more. It's not that I'm afraid to fly, which makes my reasoning not quite logical, but it won't be the first (or last) time people look at me with that quizzical, sideways squint that means "This chick is a little crazy, right?"

It's that flying is boring and way too much hassle these days. Heightened security, tiny seats, no food, overpriced drinks, the fact that everyone is cranky....it's all just too much for me at this point in my life. Throw in the chance that you might sit in a closed airplane, on the ground, for hours before you even take off, and I'm just not willing to face it. We have become pawns in the grinding gears of bureaucracy in far too many arenas as it is....I don't need this one, too.

What this means, of course, is that I drive everywhere I need to go. (So far that hasn't meant motoring to California or other such distant locales.....I'll think about that if it happens.) I plot my route on my GPS and on the Internet, try to make sure my atlas is in my car, get my music and books on CD ready, and off I go. I enjoy actually seeing where I'm going and the freedom to stop whenever I want to. Someday I'm going to get in my car and just drive, with no idea where I'm going. Just to see where I end up.

Yes, I know that this means the whole process takes much longer, and therein lies the lack of logic, considering flying is a mere inconvenience to me and not a fear. I have no defense; it's just the way it is.

And to add more illogic to the scenario,  I have to admit that my stamina for travel is less these days. Like today.....I am sitting in a hotel room not more than 10 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico, but I've been too tired to get myself there. I can practically smell the salt in the air, but this bed is soft and comfy, and my room has a balcony that allows me to watch the sunset through the palm trees outside. Maybe I wouldn't have been so tired if I had just flown here, boredom be damned.

My days of "Got to get up and DO something!" are long gone, too. Hotel rooms have become much more comfortable, I think, with pillow top mattresses, a real desk with wireless Internet, sofas and coffee tables, and happy hour in the bar. Sure, I would like to get over to the beach, but I'm pretty comfortable where I am, too. Maybe I can live here.

So many things change as we age, and I've found that traveling is one that has changed the most for me. No more airplanes, hitting the road instead, and the willingness to just sit and enjoy wherever it is I find myself. Doesn't sound too bad, does it?



I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on. 

~Jean Kerr, "Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall," The Snake Has All the Lines, 1958

Finding the way even when you think you're lost.....

I never did find my atlas. The one I spent hours with before I left for my trip to Baltimore, where I was headed to attend a writer's conference at the University of Baltimore. Even though I have a GPS for my car, the visual part of my brain needs to see the whole route in order to.....well, I'm not sure why, but I just need it, OK? It somehow comforts me to know exactly WHERE I am in South Carolina as I cruise along the 700 + mile route between my hometown and Maryland. Yes, you can tell me that it would be nearly impossible to get lost, since the entire route is on ONE road, but I also used to work for the Boy Scouts and you know what their motto is, right?

So, for about two days prior to packing up my things, picking up another writer friend who I cajoled into coming with me, and then hitting I-95, I studied and calculated and imprinted the image of the entire route into my memory banks. I think I've got it, I assured myself, the self who plans everything, including inserting time for getting lost or stopped by endless trains into every trip, even if that trip is only from my house to the dentist's office five minutes away. Might explain why I'm early for everything and annoy everyone by showing up before they're ready for me.

That morning, I threw my things in the car, including the atlas which was on the floor behind my seat, I know it was, I can see it lying there, and we were off. The humidity was around 99% and the pine forests flew by as we left Florida and cruised through Georgia. Before we knew it, we were in South Carolina, which is hard to miss with its omnipresent palm tree and moon logo on every car and sign from one end of the state to the other. They must give babies a copy of it as soon as they're born and make them sign their life over to the damn thing.

We looked for lunch, which is when I reached back to find the atlas, just to verify that we were in fact in South Carolina and I hadn't been captured by aliens and transported off to who knows where without me knowing it. OK...I don't know WHY I have to look at a map to verify what I can see right in front of me. Some people have facial tics. I have a tic that demands that I always know what is happening or what is going to happen.

And the atlas wasn't there. It wasn't behind the other seat, either. Or in the back where all the luggage was, the six bags two women brought for a one and a half day conference, nor was it under the seats I had flipped down to make way for all those bags. It had disappeared. Oh, my.....what was I going to do?

Over the course of the next few days, I kept looking, though. It had to be there, it just had to, I mumbled to myself, I know I put it in the car, I could picture myself doing it the day I finished with it in the house, I walked out and threw it in behind that seat. I simply had to see the route occasionally to reassure myself that.......well, I've already told you I don't know why.

But, somehow, we made it all the way to Baltimore and back. The Aussie voice I downloaded into my GPS helped when we needed to find another Subway (they truly are everywhere), and then we let him go back to his nap after we had eaten. Little by little I forgot about the atlas.

Someone who knew me well made the comment one day that I always had to know everything. I'm sure he made the remark without an agenda, it was just a comment. But I thought about it a lot and he was right. It manifests itself in some really strange, irritating ways, both to others and to me. So, I've made a real effort to eradicate that tic from my personality, all the way from intentionally not planning every minute of my weekends to trusting other people a bit more. Because maybe, just maybe, they will lead me just fine and not let anything bad happen along the way.

I forgot to look for the atlas for about 3 days once we got home.

And, no, I haven't found it yet. Oh, well.......who needs it anyway?