Sunday July 9
There was a distance between you and I
Rascal Flatts, “Life is a Highway”
a misunderstanding once but now
we look it in the eye
She had a long night.
From the bed and breakfast’s whirlwind welcome to the critic from across the cape, Joey had dealt with pretty much every disaster under the sun: leaking ceilings, broken heaters, not to mention Pacey’s airhead idea of inviting the world’s surliest hospitality critic. Sure her friends as staged guests had a nice time telling stories around the fire, but that was more a testament to their good humor and her undeserved pity than anything else. When she woke up the next morning, she expected the house deserted and cold once more, and left to her own bleak reality.
So begins one of the best scenes in all of “Dawson’s Creek.” Fight me on this if you will, but it’s one of those clips I watch if I need to restore hope for my own future. That, and that one guy punching a kangaroo in the face video.
But I digress. This is about something Roberto told me, something I hope stays with me for a long time to come. And with most important things it started with a search for a road – a road to what else on a lovely Sunday stroll than a church.
Sunday July 9
Up and down the highway, nothing but green pastures and greener tree lines meet the eye. But from above the trees, past the pastures, a lone kyrka spire stands out, its dark edifice against the bright sky.
The Soderala kyrka, or church, was one of if not the first thing I’d noticed in daylight my second day out here. Not having visited it before, and interested in a group outing, I met out back just like Roberto’s post from the group text message indicated. A few others had mentioned wanting to join, but so far it was the Just Us Club with the Sunday afternoon languor in full sway.
I didn’t mind. Roberto is one of those types of people who can enter a room full of strangers but leave with a room of newfound friends. His day jobs include digital professor and corporate consultant, to name a few, though world nomad and informal therapist deserve honorable mentions.
I’d asked if he was a counselor. He chuckled at that. He had been talking with Olle, and it had gotten deep. The term ‘frame a story’ was used, a phrase that was identical to some YouTube psychologist videos.
“In a way, yes, I do a lot of research, online and from books.” You can tell from the questions he asks, but more importantly the way he listens, that it’s more than the story of what you are saying. It’s just as much how you say it he analyzes.
“Can I ask you, Amanda,” he began with frankness. “The other day in the car. Were you offended? By what he said to you?”
I thought about the evening just two nights prior. It was in a box in my mind, the cardboard flapping half-shut, now re-opened.
. . . . .
With Naomi setting out for some forest in Estonia, it’s been Francesco, Victor, Ellie and I left to ourselves with Olle working during the week in Uppsala. We were having dinner together when we all got the notification that afternoon: Olle was on the train back to Soderala, with three volunteers in tow. Somebody would need to pick them up from the train station.
Two guesses who that somebody turned out to be.
Honestly, I was a bit nervous driving Olle’s car. He had given permission for volunteers to use it around the town, which I opted out of, knowing I would be way too anxious if anything happened to the car. But since the other teammates were working online or otherwise MIA, I didn’t mind the drive. Driving has been a major part of my jobs for the past several years, from floral delivery, to manning lab vans administering Covid-19 tests around Utah, to chauffeuring the elderly in a handicapped bus. Not saying I’m the best driver, but I am a conscientious one that defers to safety, especially in company cars.
The newbies were extremely easy to find. Huddled together were two Spanish girls, speaking with a Brazilian man. Even if I didn’t know their ethnicities, their suitcases were a dead giveaway. We loaded the trunk, Olle joining. I tried handing him the keys, but he said it was cool, I could drive back as a sort of driving test. I should have known from the sinking feeling in my gut that it was a bad idea, also knowing there was no way I could say anything reasonable as to getting out of it. So I hopped in, really wishing I’d prayed. Though it seemed my anxiety may have been imagined after all, since the drive was brief but smooth.
Oh, how young and naïve was I.
The turn into the driveway is a hard turn for two reasons. For one, it’s at an angle, so you really gotta crank the steering wheel. For the second, it’s an 80 kilometer per hour highway you’re cutting across. That was Olle’s main concern, as he narrated to me from the passenger side.
“You have to put your signal on and pull over.” My left blinker was already on, indicating my move to the cars behind me. There was a headed our direction down the road quickly approaching, but I was confident we could make the lefty in good time. It’s when I paused to turn, hands poised on the wheel to curt it sharp, when the exclamation came.
A yell would be more accurate. Whether in Swedish or English, I still can’t say, but Olle was yelling for me to pull over.
“What?” I said stupidly. In that millisecond I flinched. Panicked over the suddenness of the exclamation, it was now too late for me turn left.
“No, what are you doing! Move, move! You don’t stop in the middle of the road!”
There was a space for sort of a car on some rocky gravel, more of a patch on the shoulder than a shoulder itself. I turned onto it, still shocked, but mostly confused.
“Don’t ever do that.”
“I’m sorry, I was just turning left.”
“Why didnlt you turn?”
Now I was very confused. “I was turning. Is it usual to pull over to the shoulder just to turn left?”
There was a pause. “Oh.”
“Oh what?”
“You did have your signal on. You were turning left.”
You ever see a deflated balloon? Not the kind that’s popped and bursts in sound, but the kind that slowly loses air and you can see the life being squeezed from it?
That’s about how I felt inside.
Not the most elegant introduction, I’ll admit. If I were a blushing kinda gal, I would have been bright red. I went in my room and questioned every decision leading up to the car situation, and eventually that turned into questioning every decision in my brief yet interesting time thus far. While I didn’t know the other volunteers for that long, they had proven themselves to be kind, open, and available. I really didn’t know that much about Olle at all. And certainly not how he would react in a negative situation. I wasn’t upset exactly, but I wasn’t okay either.
I walked the red bike out of the shed, turning once again to the open road for some answers.
. . . . .
Roberto, of course, knew all this. Right behind me in the car, he was front and center to the shit show. I pondered his question. The long bike ride gave me time to think and fall asleep the next day, ready for work. The operation cleaning out the auxiliary house gave me good time to work and not think. Or at least, keep my thinking to its most basic forms.
“At first I was offended,” I admitted to Roberto. “But I understand it was a misunderstanding. At a very specific circumstance. I think Olle has a good heart, it was just a specific thing that occurred.” I told him a little about my family, about mentally and emotionally unstable people who I have grown up around.
I could almost hear Roberto thinking. He was intelligent and quick. But more so, he was wise.
“That explains why you’re so agreeable. But you know, it’s more than that. You have a great capacity to love and understand. That’s compassion. You can either silence or activate compassion. That’s part of who you are, and at the same time, the choice is yours. It’s what you ignore or do with it that counts.”
We chatted about other things, and the stroll in the peaceful pastures was as nice as the company. Of all we talked about, that is what I took inside with me to think over, for quite a long time.
. . . . .
I blinked. I hadn’t meant to nap for so long, but hey, that’s kind of the day off standard. I made my way to the kitchen, rubbing my eyes. For a second though, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. Well, okay, I saw my housemates all in the kitchen, hovering over the counter.
Somebody noticed me first calling me by name, the others joining in with unbridled enthusiasm. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, they moved aside so I could see their creations – pizza. Pizzas plural, actually, and man, did they smell good. Victor was the DJ as usual, and he turned up the pop tunes of ABBA. The Spanish amigas were dancing and enjoying the merriment. Francesco flipped on some rainbow LED lights from who knows where, and suddenly it was a party.
Joey Potter, I thought to myself, I may not have always agreed with you, but now I get it. Waking up to her friends in the kitchen making food, laughing, dancing, and above all letting me know in their warm and welcome ways that it didn’t matter what choices lay before us all – we had each other, and by God, we had pizza.
I know you wanna leave me
But I refuse to let you go
If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy
I don’t mind ’cause you mean that much to me
I ain’t too proud to beg
It doesn’t where we came from or how we got here. What matters is we are here.
Or, more simply put, that we are.
I tapped my bare feet to the undeniable rhythm, and joined in.