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| The view from our room in Datong. |
Hello world. Things are looking good. Yesterday evening, the couple I’ve been traveling with explained to me the meaning of life, the only problem is I forgot what they said, and we parted ways this morning. Shoot. Maybe they’ll email it to me.
I’m in the ancient city of Pingyao, China, and fat raindrops are coming down hard on ladies and gents running through the streets, there are wet dogs huddled under awnings, and I just saw a woman ride by on a moped with her kid seated behind her. He was facing backwards with a plastic tarp over his head. I’m sitting in my hostel watching it all through the window. I’m dry, but my feet are cold. All my socks are in the laundry.
There’s a chill in the air and it’s time for romance. Get your comfy sweater on, and if you can, get yourself in front of a fireplace. Jump on the couch with your sweetie and convince them to give you a foot massage while you drink hot beverages together. That’s what I would do if I had a fireplace, comfy sweater, and a sweetie. Cool weather after the heat of summer always gets me excited for cuddling and school supplies.
Romance was trailing behind Marguerita and me everywhere we went in Mongolia. We traveled with multiple couples and participated in many a candle lit dinner, cozy evenings warmed by wood burning stoves, riding horseback, astonishing scenery, and long walks on the beach. Mongolia is for lovers… and then there was Marguerita and me. We made the most of it by using the time to conjure visions of the perfect guy. Through our collaboration we figured out that we were hoping for a funny, good-looking guy, with a large supply of DVDs, a guitar and a good signing voice, and he needed to be strong and willing to carry things for us. We found each and every one of these attributes, but never residing in the same person all at once.
Marguerita is off to start a new life in the UK. We said goodbye in Ulaanbaatar and I got on a train to China with one of the couples we had met there. I’ve had a solid month and a half of traveling with new friends. It was a really nice change of pace, but I’m on my own again and enjoying going solo. At home I’m a bit of a hermit, and it’s a real challenge (a good one) for me to spend every waking hour with other people. I get a little angst ridden sometimes, because I know people have rules, rules that they don’t tell you, but you’re expected to follow. Rules that they aren’t even aware of, but if you break one they’ll wig out. Luckily no one wigged out.
I started reading this book about how to make your way through India while offending the smallest amount of people possible. It’s all about unspoken rules and how we unwittingly break them, sometimes leading to big ass consequences. It’s amazing how complex our inner bureaucratic voices are, and the real troubling part is; not only are the rules different for every culture, region, and township, they are also shaped and changed by family dynamics, friendships, and individual preferences, making writing the standardized rule book, for all of us who wish to be non-offensive, an absolute impossibility.
Now that we’re pretty certain that things like airplanes and the internet aren’t going away, cultures are mixing all over the place. We have the ability to unintentionally piss each other off right and left. And speaking of romance, how the hell does anyone make that happen? Your rules, their rules, gender rules, your culture’s system for how it’s all supposed to go down, your friends comparing your relationship to theirs and trying to govern it based on how they structure their own, then you’ve got parents weighing in, trying to tell you both what kind of jobs to have, when to have kids, how often you should be calling, and everything else. Ugh, time to retreat to my cave and only converse with myself. Even that is not a foolproof system. I really wish I hadn’t forgotten the meaning of life. I should have been taking notes; maybe it could clear some of this up.
After decades of breaking people’s rules, pissing people off, having my own rules broken, and getting pissed off myself, the only conclusion I’ve been able to reach is that I’m wrong, they’re wrong, we all have a point, and it doesn’t really matter anyway. I try to forgive others and myself as quickly as possible, and if they’ll agree to do the same then hopefully we can get back to the fireside foot massages on the couch in our comfy sweaters. Who’s with me?
It’s scheduled to rain here for the next few days, but I’m going to do my best to power through it and get some photos. This city is really beautiful. Hopefully there will be a break in the clouds, or maybe it will just look really sexy when it’s wet… Fingers crossed.
I’m in the ancient city of Pingyao, China, and fat raindrops are coming down hard on ladies and gents running through the streets, there are wet dogs huddled under awnings, and I just saw a woman ride by on a moped with her kid seated behind her. He was facing backwards with a plastic tarp over his head. I’m sitting in my hostel watching it all through the window. I’m dry, but my feet are cold. All my socks are in the laundry.
There’s a chill in the air and it’s time for romance. Get your comfy sweater on, and if you can, get yourself in front of a fireplace. Jump on the couch with your sweetie and convince them to give you a foot massage while you drink hot beverages together. That’s what I would do if I had a fireplace, comfy sweater, and a sweetie. Cool weather after the heat of summer always gets me excited for cuddling and school supplies.
Romance was trailing behind Marguerita and me everywhere we went in Mongolia. We traveled with multiple couples and participated in many a candle lit dinner, cozy evenings warmed by wood burning stoves, riding horseback, astonishing scenery, and long walks on the beach. Mongolia is for lovers… and then there was Marguerita and me. We made the most of it by using the time to conjure visions of the perfect guy. Through our collaboration we figured out that we were hoping for a funny, good-looking guy, with a large supply of DVDs, a guitar and a good signing voice, and he needed to be strong and willing to carry things for us. We found each and every one of these attributes, but never residing in the same person all at once.
Marguerita is off to start a new life in the UK. We said goodbye in Ulaanbaatar and I got on a train to China with one of the couples we had met there. I’ve had a solid month and a half of traveling with new friends. It was a really nice change of pace, but I’m on my own again and enjoying going solo. At home I’m a bit of a hermit, and it’s a real challenge (a good one) for me to spend every waking hour with other people. I get a little angst ridden sometimes, because I know people have rules, rules that they don’t tell you, but you’re expected to follow. Rules that they aren’t even aware of, but if you break one they’ll wig out. Luckily no one wigged out.
I started reading this book about how to make your way through India while offending the smallest amount of people possible. It’s all about unspoken rules and how we unwittingly break them, sometimes leading to big ass consequences. It’s amazing how complex our inner bureaucratic voices are, and the real troubling part is; not only are the rules different for every culture, region, and township, they are also shaped and changed by family dynamics, friendships, and individual preferences, making writing the standardized rule book, for all of us who wish to be non-offensive, an absolute impossibility.
Now that we’re pretty certain that things like airplanes and the internet aren’t going away, cultures are mixing all over the place. We have the ability to unintentionally piss each other off right and left. And speaking of romance, how the hell does anyone make that happen? Your rules, their rules, gender rules, your culture’s system for how it’s all supposed to go down, your friends comparing your relationship to theirs and trying to govern it based on how they structure their own, then you’ve got parents weighing in, trying to tell you both what kind of jobs to have, when to have kids, how often you should be calling, and everything else. Ugh, time to retreat to my cave and only converse with myself. Even that is not a foolproof system. I really wish I hadn’t forgotten the meaning of life. I should have been taking notes; maybe it could clear some of this up.
After decades of breaking people’s rules, pissing people off, having my own rules broken, and getting pissed off myself, the only conclusion I’ve been able to reach is that I’m wrong, they’re wrong, we all have a point, and it doesn’t really matter anyway. I try to forgive others and myself as quickly as possible, and if they’ll agree to do the same then hopefully we can get back to the fireside foot massages on the couch in our comfy sweaters. Who’s with me?
It’s scheduled to rain here for the next few days, but I’m going to do my best to power through it and get some photos. This city is really beautiful. Hopefully there will be a break in the clouds, or maybe it will just look really sexy when it’s wet… Fingers crossed.
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The train ride to Pingyao.  |
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