Recently, I noticed that Google added little details to how it gives directions. Along with the typical notifications it now includes landmarks.
"Turn right after the Starbucks", is a helpful hint just as long as there aren't Starbucks on both sides of the street. Also, do the directions account for shuttered businesses? "In 1,000 feet, take a sharp left at the Blockbuster that didn't quite make it", may be a little too wordy. Most importantly, how would Google direct me when there are no businesses in a town?
I made it to France and I am not sick. Ask me how I feel in a couple of weeks. I am staying with my auntie’s best friend in a hamlet called Aulnay sur Mauldre. Population 1,100. No businesses in the town. It’s quiet. My hosts, Sylvie and Gerard, live up a hill about two blocks from a church that directs people to the centre-ville. If I walk up the hill, it winds its way through around a handful of houses and into the woods. If I walk down the hill, I reach a stream that takes me south and towards the next town.
A couple of days ago, I wanted to go for a walk. I had a few hours to spend before dinner and Sylvie suggested I walk to the closest town to the north, Nezel. She gave me clear directions, "Walk up the hill and stay to right. It will switchback several times until you reach a clearing and farmland. Keep straight until you reach a walnut tree. Take a right at the walnut tree and continue until you reach a farm. A big farm. At the farm, take another right and you will wind your way back down into the valley and reach Nezel. Got it?"
I didn't have it. These directions left me with a lot of questions such as, "What does a walnut tree look like?" and "if the entire landscape is farmland, how will I know which farm is the 'BIG' one?" Still, I had plenty of time and not much to do and what could seriously go wrong? So I set off on my first of many explorations.
The funny thing about walking is that it is the same activity no matter where I happen to be. Walking in Evanston, IL feels eerily similar to walking in Aulnay Sur Mauldre because it is, in fact, the same exact thing. Except, it is completely different. There are no cars, no planes overhead, no ambulances, no trains. I don't have to strain to hear bird songs over the commotion of the city. Many times birds are the only thing I hear.
As I reach the clearing, the wind picks up through the valley and shoots over the hills. At the peak, I am walking directly into the headwind and the sound of the wind swirling around me is deafening. Suddenly, I can't hear the birds anymore. And so it goes as I walk through gusts of wind.
It is easy to pick out things on the horizon because there is not much on the horizon. Well apart from green plants and tilled land that is. I am struck by the simplicity. By the slowness. By the nothingness. I am also aware that this is normal and that in time it will be normal for me. That this is life for billions of people living in rural communities all over the world and I am teeming in curiosity because I am experiencing it for the first time. It is not bad or good, it is different.
Only time will tell if I can adjust to a calmer life "to the right of the walnut tree" instead of the glamorous life "a block down from the corner with two Starbucks." I am humbled to have the opportunity to try. Something in my heart tells me that there's a space for the abstract direction.
