One of the nicest parts of my vacation was a stop at a little restaurant in Asheville, NC called Home Grown. There were only a few tables and it felt it might have been someone’s house at one point with little rooms and baskets labeled “Silverware, Y’all”
There were in fact, quite a few Y’all’s that evening, mostly from the friendly woman that took our order. She was excited about the dishes as she explained them to us and complimented us on our ice cream selection to go with the blueberry dessert.
I got the buttermilk fried chicken sandwich – they are famous for it, apparently – and Jim got some soup.
The food was good and the restaurant was clean and bright, but what really set it apart was the joy from the people that worked there. They liked the food, they liked cooking it, and they liked serving it to people. And they liked people in general.
It was a little odd, but we rolled with it. I had made a little orange ball of origami sunshine and gave it to the friendliest woman there. She was so excited about it I thought she might jump over the counter and give me a hug, but instead said, “Y’All have a safe trip!”
It was the friendliest part of a generally friendly city. There was also a fun gift shop and an amazing bookstore.
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By contrast, the rest of the drive for our trip was less friendly. We were fine on the highways where even the most difficult people were easy to avoid with a simple lane change. Not so when we tried to exit in Spartanburg and get some food and fuel. We came upon a mass of traffic, had to turn around to navigate to the Wendy’s parking lot where we had to maneuver around a fender bender where the participants refused to move. The line was horrible in the restaurant and the drive-through was worse. We left without ordering and skipped the gas station as well – it looked impassable. With a daring left turn we had the highway in sight and nearly got run off the road by a driver who merged without looking. Well, she was looking – at her phone.
It was a ways down the road before we tried stopping again and in this small town we found another Wendy’s with no line and a gas station also with no line. Food and fuel to go and we were on our way.
In Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “No exit” is a line that is translated to Hell is the Other or more commonly Hell is Other People.
I was still in a Hell of Other People during our first trip to the beach. There was a family with wailing children to the right of us, a couple with a loud and boring conversation to the left, a family with a giant tent in front of us (blocking the view of the ocean) that played Jimmy Buffett non stop, and a kid that would NOT. STOP. BOUNCING. THAT. BALL!
I escaped to the ocean and swam until I was far enough out that I was alone. Parallel to the beach I headed down one side of the beach and then turned to swim back. On my second trip out I had to turn back early to avoid the surf casters. These are folks that stand in the surf or on the beach and go fishing. The two I encountered were out in the water a fair piece and I had to swim behind them for fear of getting tangled in their line or even worse hooked.
I was furious at them. How dare they endanger other people like that? I had a whole host of terrible plans in my head for what I would do if I did get hooked – and most of those culminated in punching a fisherman in the face. I was nearly spitting with rage at these guys and then…
… I got past the second one and realized no one else could possibly give a shit. I was the only one that far out and the only one swimming along the beach. Everyone else was just… not near them, and with a slight detour, neither was I.
Now, I still don’t think they should have been out there, but it didn’t really matter.
And as I got back to my chair on the beach, I saw that the noisy couple had left. And the tent had been taken down. And the kids were quietly building a sand castle.
All the anger just seemed, well, silly. It’s not my beach and while my enjoyment is based on sitting very quietly or swimming, that’s clearly not the norm.
So, I got over my hell of other people, sat quietly, and just settled myself down.
The rest of the vacation was an exercise in avoidance. Where there was a crowd either one us or the other – or both – would start to get tense. We went out to eat a couple times, but mostly ate in. There was a lot of reading, sitting quietly on the beach, and watching DVD’s in the evening.
The worst was trying to fill up the car with gasoline ahead of the trip home – and ahead of the hurricane. All the gas stations were full of cars when we went and while they didn’t run out of gas while we were there, nobody was willing to give any ground. It was a tense experience and I remember thinking… “This. This is where civilization breaks down. We all need to leave, this is the resource that will allow that, and it’s limited.”
Once we got gas and got out of there, the rest of trip was uneventful. And that included the drive home. 11 boring and uneventful hours. The only blip was when we stopped for lunch at Arby’s and the clerk made Jim mad by over complicating his order and then mumbling about it. I got mad at the loud group behind us that refused to agree on anything.
People.
Again.
Overall, it was a good vacation. I swam a lot in the ocean, read 6 books, did some writing, and slept in a lot. The island had deer that we got to interact with one evening and there were no jellyfish to speak of. By the end of the week, the beach was all but deserted and the waves were wild and fun.
And parts of the trip were downright peaceful.
Tomorrow will be back to work and a host of emails to get through and problems to solve. But for the rest of my vacation that is today, I’m taking it easy and spending some time alone.
And maybe do a little research on quiet meditation. I’m clearly in need of some.