Day trip

My fiancé and I have some strong similarities.  We're both very much in touch with our "little kid" sides; we're both goofy; we're both sharp-witted and soft-hearted; we both love animals; we both prefer dive bars with darts to clubs, and jeans and sneakers to the most recent trends; we're both grammar nuts and particularly cringe at the current trend of incorrectly using "I" as an object like in that horrible Ikea commercial where the voice-over says, "you never told your dad and I about that"; we both are very accepting and give people a lot of space to do their thing and be themselves....  But in some ways we're also complete opposites.  He's OCD, and I'm spontaneous and embrace messiness, both literal (in its time and place) and metaphorical.  He says he has no creative instincts, and I crave creative outlets.  He doesn't read, and I love reading.  He hates ballet, and ballet is my biggest passion.  He can sit through an REO Speedwagon concert without covering his ears and going out to the lobby, and I can't.

When it comes to paid recreation, we also tend to have somewhat different views.  To my fiancé, paid recreation (other than rock concerts), like a vacation or going to the theatre, is generally an opportunity to save money -- by not doing it.  To me, those are some of the reasons you save money elsewhere.  Like Belle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, I want adventure in the great wide somewhere.  So I've been bugging my fiancé for over a year now to take a weekend getaway with me.  Someplace exciting.  Someplace different.

...But when that fails, I get him to take day trips on the Long Island Rail Road with me. (Yeah, I know, in an ideal world the rest of this blog post would be about that wonderful adventurous weekend getaway.  That blog post is coming some day because I am nothing if not persistent, and I WILL get my weekend getaway... but not yet).  One of our great similarities is that we take pleasure in the small things in life.  An "adventure" to me doesn't mean skiing or ziplining -- it can simply be exploring someplace I've never been and knowing nothing ahead of time about our randomly chosen destination.  I love all the small differences between the character of different towns and their inhabitants.  Walking through a little town in the middle of nowhere where each lawn speaks of a family who lives and plays there and each house promises hidden harbored stories and lives can be a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.  Each town is a little mystery to be partially unraveled in the few hours I get to spend there.  I love seeing lawns with swing sets and slides that speak of endless fun-filled summer days; or well-cared for gardens as a woman kneels in her sun hat and gardening gloves, making the visual landscape full of beauty by saturating it with life-affirming color; or a teen making some spare money mowing the lawn as the fresh scent of cut grass fills the air and he bops his head to whatever song plays in his ears.  The characters of each town become real to me as my imagination fills in their backstories and ponders how different life is for the inhabitants of one geographical location to the next.

Last Sunday we spent just such an afternoon in a tiny town an hour and twenty minutes away on the LIRR.  We didn't Google it beforehand or look at how close the nearest shopping district was; we just got off the train and started walking.  Within two minutes of getting off the train, a jogger passed us, throwing a smile our way with a wave and hello, and my fiancé commented, "Well, we're clearly not in New York City anymore!"  Not long after, we passed a lawn with a few children playing in front of a lemonade stand.  My Detroit-born-and-raised fiancé could hardly contain his excitement at seeing his first-ever real-life lemonade stand and hurried to buy a cup, tipping our seven-year-old entrepeneur quite generously (to a seven-year-old) for his excellent product.  As we walked with our lemonade, a Ford motor car that looked like it drove straight out of the 1920s passed us, the driver giving us a nod as he passed -- a nod that silently said, "Yeah, I know, it's the coolest car ever -- smile and stare to your heart's content."  After the Ford, I realized the shapes under tarps in several driveways were other old cars from many decades past.  What about this particular town led to so many households owning vintage cars?  As we approached the main shopping drag, we passed an old dilapidated house with boarded windows and doors.  What Christmases had the house once held?  What laughter?  What did it look like the first day some happy family moved into it, ready to make it their home and fill it with memories?  How had it come to be deserted and left to rot? 

Passing a coffee shop provided the most curious part of our visit: As a young Asian woman exited the shop, an old lady approached the door, and as the two ladies passed, the older woman gave a huge grin to the young woman and very loudly and deliberately, as if speaking to someone who's both deaf and doesn't speak English well, said with a nod, "Welcome to our neighborhood!" leaving the young woman wide-eyed and perplexed, staring after the older woman.  I turned and stared for several beats as we kept walking past, before turning back to my fiancé and asking, "Jonathan....?"

"I don't know, Jessica," he replied, laughing. "I don't know."

Did the older woman think anyone not Caucasian must be new to her neighborhood?  I have an image in my head of her telling all her friends proudly, "I welcome EVERYONE.  No judgment.  I like all people," as she unintentionally offends people left and right with her well-intentioned but misguided welcomes to everyone not Caucasian.

It was when we passed a Rite Aid and I walked in that my fiancé questioned my interest for the first time.

"Jessica.  I'm not walking around a Rite Aid.  Why are we in a Rite Aid? ... I'm not going to smell perfumes, if that's what you have in mind."

"Nooooo, I'm not looking at perfumes!" I laughingly replied as we passed into the seasonal aisle.

"Oo look! It's already Halloween here!"

"That's just crazy.  It's 85 degrees.  It's not Halloween," he said, looking at the fall wreathes and scary toys.

"Okay, can I tell you a secret?" I said conspiratorially, reducing my tone to a loud stage whisper as I bounced down the spooky aisle with a smile.  "When we went on vacations when I was a little kid, I loved going into drug stores and grocery stores.  Because when you think about it, what's the store you spend the most time at?  It's your local drug store and grocery store.  You know your drug store and your grocery store so well.  It's such a part of town life.  So I loved going into other small towns' drug stores and grocery stores because though they're foreign to me, they're someone else's home stores -- where they get all their daily things, where they gossip at the register, where they notice when the aisles get rearranged or when they change the scent of the air freshener....  The stores all have a slightly different flavor and character, cater to slightly different tastes....  It's like looking at a slice of their daily life.  It's the next closest thing to looking into people's houses."

My fiancé just stopped and stared at me for several seconds before saying, "Jessica.....  You're very special.”

I smiled back at him.  The truth is that, given the right perspective, almost any day can be an adventure, any place can be interesting, and any experience can be full of good lessons... because after all, life itself is a special adventure.

But I'm still going to get my weekend getaway.