Normal? What Is That? April 11th 2023

 

    Know what?  It feels like forever that I got a chance to sit down and do this:  Consult with you, my online therapists.  Sometimes life gets in the way.   And lately?  Well we've been away.  Only six short days ago we arrived home from California.   We spent two months just outside San Diego in a beautiful rural setting.    A place where the Canadian Snow Bird reigns supreme.  Now it did happen to be what locals called the coldest wettest winter in modern California history,  but I am not at all sure Californians should even be allowed to use the word "winter".    

    We have escaped the Western Canadian winters numerous times.  It started the year I retired with a two ween trip to Hawaii.  I remember February 1st 2009 walking on the beach in Honolulu in bare feet and a tee.  I giggled all day.   We've done Hawaii four times since then.  Florida two times.  Portugal once.   We got to experience our first tropical storm on the island of Madeira.  In my mind, it still wasn't -20.  

     What made California a different experience than the others was that we invested in the whole snow bird thing.  We bought into a time share.  It is in the country just minutes north east of San Diego.  It was a nice roomy apartment and included golf fees at a local 18 hole course.   And it came with friends from our home town.  Two couples who have been involved in this time share for ions and bleems. 

      We flew to our other winter destinations but this time we loaded up our Acadia with golf clubs and fry pans and clothes we never wore, and trinkets that make a house a home.   Silly what you take when you can just throw it in the back.   But it made us feel like invested snow birds.  And what does being a snow bird mean?  Well I am sure it means different things to different people.  Many, I am sure never really think about it.   It is just what you do.  

    To me, being a snow bird means I was lucky enough to have the financial security to be somewhere warm for a while.  That my family will all be safe and secure while Carol and I escape that house bound feeling winter gives a person who doesn't get up and get out to work every morning.  It means you can leave your country worry free about what will happen when you're gone or how you will be viewed where ever you are.  And again,  being a snow bird means you can get more useless crap you will never use into your aging vehicle and drive to a destination where it is sunny(er) and warm(er) than it is at home.

    I have made it pretty clear in  the past how much I love my home and native land.  Sure, we screw up from time to time.  We have some pretty ugly blemishes in our history.  We are so vast and sparsely populated that we will always have some pretty major differences from coast to coast.  But our history has made us tough while remaining compassionate.  It has made us free.  More free than any country in the world.  It has made us watch out and stand up for one another.  We have answered the bell when it tolls faster and more focused than many for more populated, military, and richer than us.  We are the good guys who have risked our own in keeping and maintaining peace throughout the modern world.  

     But still,  if you can't learn a thing or two from others from time to time.......  We have now spent several days on the road across western America.  And for all that isn't us,  there is a charm to our neighbours.  Those who serve in the service industry are warm and cheerful.  Service, even when it is busy comes from people who don't share their delivery problems with you.   In all our outings, I never once had a sneering waitress who let her conflict with a co-worker come to our table.  Never once did I meet a gas station attendant who had absolutely no interest in getting you served.  Service  is generally good, and better than it is so many places here.  I can't help but wonder why.   

    America has always been able to sell with flash and glitter.  I don't know if that is actually a good thing, but it certainly is done differently than it is in other places.   We crossed the boarder in Montana.  If you have never traveled Montana,   DO!  Same to be said for Idaho, and especially Utah.   The corner of Arizona we crossed was so foreign and unbelievably beautiful.   Then there is Nevada.  Across the barest, starkest, and yes ugliest land,  with abandoned cars and neglected yards that are miles apart,  stands the skyline of Vegas.  Like a cut out cardboard prop.  How anything ended up there I will never know.   I have to say,  for me,  it made Vegas even less appealing.  It just doesn't look real, which is exactly what they were going for, I guess.   

    But for all the glitz and glitter that is Hollywood, Vegas, Disney land and world,  there is so much in America that is simply gob smacking.   The Utah mountains, The California red woods,  the Arizona canyons.   The deserts.  All of which are still relatively natural.  

     Having married an eastern girl and having family in the eastern states,  I have now seen a good deal of America.  And I have to say that although I have absolutely no understanding of their politics, nor the fascination with guns, and the adherence to archaic constitutional amendments,  I kinda fell in love with the ordinary everyday American.   And that was a good thing.  If all goes well, we will be back in Sunny California next winter.  For a month rather than two,  but still with the opportunity to see some canyons, hike more mountains, consume more incredible Mexican food,  and of course to explain that Canadians have NEVER SAID ABOOT EVER.   It's like being at the neighbours house.  Its comfortable, familiar and the hosts are oh so close.......but it isn't home.    It just isn't normal.   Whatever normal is.