11.02.06

Loner

Posted in Uncategorized, Emotions, I Ask You!, The business of living, Road tripping at 1:30 pm by Athena

Nanowrimo first days count is 1,941 words.  I haven’t started today yet so I have to update my blog and get to work. 

Something has been bothering me lately; it’s sort of a revelation about the way I was treated by older men on my road trip.  The day I left and stopped at Zion’s National Park, I was driving back to Kanab late in the evening when I missed those two deer and took the first hotel with vacancy.  I was still shaking so bad from the close call that I had trouble filling out the guest card for registration.  The guy, perhaps in his late forties, and a mountain type asked if I was okay. 

Voice quavering, “I almost hit a couple of does in the road.”

“That happens a lot around here during season.” He looked at me then made a point of looking behind me and around the obviously empty room before asking. “Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“You’re all alone.” He stared at me reiterating. “All by yourself?”

I nodded.  I hadn’t bothered me up until that moment that I was by myself.  The way he was acting was starting to creep me out. So I took my key and went to my room where I double checked the lock on the door.  I wasn’t actually worried about being a single female in a Podunk town – only his response was sufficiently weird enough to make me second guess myself.

A couple days later I was in Grants, just outside Albuquerque where the snowstorm had forced me to take cover at a Days Inn.  As I pulled into the shelter and staggered into the lobby at 10:30, an older man in his sixties perhaps – Demetrius Farquarht, was asking for something from the night manager when he spotted me.

“Well, what’s the matter, you don’t want to drive in this weather?”

I shook my head and he looked expectantly behind me.  Then at me, then at my jeep parked outside the door.

“You’re not alone are you?” He asked.

I nodded. Thinking I must be missing out on some grand joke.

“You’re driving in this alone?” he asked surprised.

I could have gone into detail about learning to drive in Alaska and that it wasn’t the snow that scared me it was the other drivers, but I was tired and a little irritated that he and every other older gentleman seemed to think I was incapable of traveling alone. So I watched him leave shaking his head and hoped that was the end of it. 

But alas, as I came to the lobby for breakfast, Demetrius was sitting with his wife when he spotted me and announced rather loudly, “There’s the girl I told you about.  She’s all alone.”

This led to the introduction of his wife and I ate my muffin and cereal next to their table while we talked of travel.  We were joined shortly by a guy in his forties and his mother.  They were on their way to Phoenix.  Demetrius didn’t miss a beat when the conversation opened to include the newcomers and was quick to make it known – “She’s all by herself.  She’s driving around on a road trip all alone.” To my relief the newcomers didn’t make mention of it.  So we enjoyed breakfast and I had fun chatting with new people. 

Friday morning I went to Pep Boys to get a headlight.  As I was changing the headlight in the parking lot with my trusty tool kit, a hunched and well aged Mexican man approached me.  He was a worker at the store and when he saw I was changing my headlight (which I’m fully capable of doing) he looked at the jeep. “Are you alone?” He asked in a heavy accent.  I gritted my teeth to keep from snapping at the poor guy.  I was getting really fucking tired of the question.

“Yes.” I sighed.

“Oh, no.” he moaned. “You are all alone…” He made it sound like I was some pathetic lost orphan or something. Then he shouldered me out of the way, took the torque wrench out of my hand and began changing the light for me. It was becoming so ridiculous all I could do was laugh.  As I handed him a size 15 bit, he said, “How come you brokeded your finger?” His accent was very heavy.

I had in fact torn a hangnail piece of skin on the edge of my middle finger gathering pretty rocks on the trip. 

“I’ve been playing in the desert.  It’s tough to stay fresh and pretty when you’re traveling.”

He nodded and loitered until I packed up my tool box and pulled out of the parking lot.  He watched me with kindly eyes and a fatherly demeanor and I waved back before leaving Santa Fe.

I hadn’t been worried about going off on the road.  I hadn’t been worried about traveling alone, or adventuring in vast stretches of desert or National Parks by myself until the question kept coming up.  In fact it began to bother me so bad I wondered if they knew something I didn’t.  I couldn’t help but wonder if a guy my age traveling alone would be faced with the same commentary and treated as though he were some sort of anomaly or even an idiot for going on a journey without backup?  If I were a man – would the little Mexican dude have changed my light?  Would the hotel clerk have made a point of telling me the room has a deadbolt? Would Demetrius have mentioned me to his wife?

What’s this anxiety that persists in the culture of a girl being out on her own? It’s fairly common for a man to need time to go searching for answers – in fact there was a time in history that a “tour” was part of the initiation of a man discovering himself.  Why is it so different for me?

I’m not angry so much as exasperated.  Does everyone think that there is so much evil in this world that I shouldn’t be safe? Do men assume I will be in danger if I’m by myself because THEY are dangerous or is it that they believe others are dangerous?  I just don’t understand. Are they just surprised?

As I was sitting at the Sanctuary on Saturday morning, the girl asked if I was just on a road trip.  “And yes…” I said heavily, anticipating the question – “I’m alone.”

“That’s so cool.” She said.

“Oh – uh…” I was so surprised by her open response all I could say was, “Thanks, I think so too.”

My dad still insists on opening the car door for me, even when his arms are full he still hurries ahead to get the door.  I know it’s just his way of showing me he loves me and his brand of respect with which he was raised.  And while I accept this form of courtesy from him and others without feeling that it is demeaning or belittling, I do also appreciate being allowed the freedom and the trust to prove I can do things for myself – such as change a headlight. 

As adorable as it was, I think he would have served me better by either standing by to offer assistance if I needed it, or to give instruction.  What would happen if I’d lost a headlight off in the desert and there was no one there to fix it for me? Passing knowledge or wisdom for someone to be self empowered – to me anyway, is far more valuable and respectful than taking the option out of their hands.

Again, while I understand this is the way of the older generations in particular.  I can know for myself now that I’ve been on this BlissQuest, that if I ever get to where I can love unabashedly and with fierceness again,  I will likely be drawn to the types of men who not only believe me to be capable, but smart and savy enough to hold my own.  What greater compliment is there?  Then accepting a gesture such as having the door opened, or my headlight changed would be accepting a service of love or devotion and not a service of obligation, and I would hope that my service in such ways would also be appreciated for the same reasons.

This portion of the journey has certainly raised questions in my mind about respect, the power of my own judgment, and the strength I believe I have versus the strength other perceive in me. 

What do you think?

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