Every time I travel with my husband, I end up creating a new life for us in my head. It doesn’t matter where we go; a quick getaway an hour from our home, or halfway across the globe, I always wonder what it would be like to live there. I don’t know if everyone does this, or if my imagination goes a little wild at times, but in the space of 5 minutes, I’ve created a whole new world in my head. It can be triggered by a charming piazza, a quaint library, a little hospital, or a homey restaurant that I can easily envision becoming “our place.” Anything that is familiar, but different; common-place, but new. This past weekend, on a spur of the moment road trip with my ever-ready travel buddy, I did it again.
It all started with a rainy day, a bustling bay on the banks of the St. Lawrence river, an enticing coffee shop with geraniums in a window box, and a few tables and chairs set cozily by a rain streaked picture window. My husband and I had just paid for our ferry tickets to see a castle on a heart-shaped island in the middle of the river. A tourist attraction, the story behind the castle is both romantic and tragic, and I was eager to see it for myself. It was raining hard when we left our motel, and I had given myself a mental pat on the back for remembering our rain coats. But now, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, and my husband had shucked his off, while we strolled through the town looking for a place to get coffee and maybe a pastry while we waited for the ferry.
We wandered in through the open door of a tourist shop that sold t-shirts, hats and souvenirs, because it had a sign out front offering us coffee and warm cinnamon buns. Finding an empty spot at the window, we plunked down to while away the minutes until it was time to depart. Chatting about how good the cinnamon bun was, while watching the passers-by, some with rain coats, but most without, we both turned our heads when a heavyset elderly man, wearing stained Dickies work pants, and a baseball hat that had seen better days, sat down beside us. He joked with the college-aged girls manning the counter; clearly he was a regular. “Hi there!” he wheezed heartily in our direction, “where are you folks from?” We told him we lived about 450 miles away, in Maine. “Maine, huh?” he said remembering, his milky blue eyes smiling, “The wife and I used to like to go up there in the fall, sometimes clear up the coast.” My husband continued chatting with him conversationally, while my mind started to wander.
“What if we lived here?” I thought. “What if we were regulars at this cute little shop too? What if we often saw Bud (no idea what his name was, but Bud seemed appropriate) and knew the names of the girls behind the counter. What if I worked at that adorable hospital, right on the banks of the river? It doesn’t look too big, maybe just slightly bigger than the hospital where I work. I bet I would like it there. I could take patients for walks on the path that leads right from the hospital door, and goes along the river. Tiny could work anywhere; he’d probably find a job in a day. We’d live right in town, and walk everywhere. We could eat at that dockside restaurant that we went to last night, every week. And that ice cream place! that could be a problem… but at least I’d be walking a lot. We would definitely want to get a boat. I wonder where the nearest grocery store is, and a church…”
Suddenly I was brought to my senses by “Bud” who nudged my arm and smiled in a crinkly, way, “So, you two are going to Boldt castle? That used to be helluva good place to party, got my name written on one of them walls before they started restoring it.” he said giving me a conspiratorial wink, making me like him right then and there.”Yeah,” I thought, I could get used to this place, we could make it a home.” I smiled at my husband who was finishing his coffee, while talking to Bud about the proportions and dimensions of a cargo ship we had seen last night, and what kind of cargo it carried; the kinds of things that men say to each other that make me think that they are adorable, but also boring, allowing my mind to continue to create my new microcosm.
“Bud’s probably actually a millionaire, one of those really frugal ones, who wears the same thing everyday and has money squirreled away all over his crumbling old mansion. I bet his real name is something like, Robert Edward Worthington III, (the ridiculousness of creating a fake name, off of an already made up name, lost on me at the time, so caught up in this reverie was I), he never had any children and is lonely since his wife died and he stopped caring about his appearance. Tiny could help him out as a caretaker and I bet he would eventually leave his inheritance to him….”
Before my mind could venture any further, my cellphone binged; a text from my daughter. She was sending me a picture of our granddaughter, and I instantly switched gears. Chloe! Emily! Isaac! I would never leave them, and start a new life so far away from my heart’s delights. I sent back a heart Emoji, as my husband stood to clear the table of our cups and plates, while telling Bud that it had been nice talking to him. I gathered my backpack, and put it on over my pink raincoat, while my husband threw his yellow one over his arm. I looked over my shoulder and waved a goodbye to Bud, who was already turning his attention away from us, toward a young couple sitting at another table.
We walked out of the shop and into the warm soupy air, turning in the direction of the water, our shuttle boat having just docked. I was feeling a little guilty, like I’d betrayed them all for even thinking about a new life, when suddenly, Tiny leaned over and said, “I could get used to this place.” I smiled, experiencing one of those rare moments of clarity that a new experience can sometimes bring….”This is why we travel,” I thought, “to physically escape our daily routine while absorbing new ideas, new people and new thoughts, and to store all these things up inside our memory banks so that we can make a mental withdrawal anytime our emotional wallet is empty. No need to feel guilty…Traveling sparks my imagination because I feel alive when I travel, and when I come back, I’ve fallen in love all over again with the life I’ve already made…at home.”
“To travel is to live.” ~Hans Christian Anderson
