Sunday, March 11, 2012

Not what I had in mind: How I found Seattle for the first time (Part II)

This is the second installment of a two-part series. You might want to read part I first. 


"The distinguishing mark of true adventures is that it is often no fun at all while they are actually happening." 
-Kim Stanley Robinson


Early in my second year at McGill, I discovered a book that would change my life. 


I had returned to Montreal with some reluctance. I felt like a sheep being herded along some safe, established path, without really knowing where I was going or why. I wanted to strike out on my own, but didn't really know how, and was afraid of what might happen if I didn't have some kind of plausible alternate plan. For one, my academically-focused parents might possibly disown me. I needed to convince them that I could fend for myself outside the confines of school, and maybe even do something worthwhile while I was at it. 


And then came Work Your Way Around the World, perched innocuously on the "careers" shelf of the University Bookstore. Continent by continent, it detailed work and volunteer opportunities for the aspiring vagabond, from freelance blueberry picking in Norway to vegetable gardening at remote Andean orphanages. The book provided contact information for thousands of organizations and testimony from actual people who had dived in and lived to tell the tale. 


There was enough in that book to keep me busy for several years, at least. It was just the boost that I needed. I made two rules for myself: (1) Do only things that you find interesting and exciting; and (2) Earn your keep. No crawling back home to ask for money. At the end of the school year, I informed the registrar's office that I'd be taking some time off, and all of a sudden, I was free.


Six months later, when the Greyhound bus spat me out in downtown Seattle after a delirious 24-hour ride up I-5, freedom didn't seem so sweet. I had blown almost all of my summer savings on a police car that had burned to a crisp in the Sierra foothills a week after I had bought it. My plans to farm my way up the coast were bust. I no longer cared if I found something "interesting and exciting" to do; I merely wanted to recover some of that money, before the holidays if possible.


I landed a minimum wage job running the register and washing dishes at a pizza joint in the University District. Besides my sister and her small social circle, I didn't know anyone in town. This was okay, as it meant I wasn't tempted to spend money. But I was miserable. Occasionally, through a break in the autumn skies, I'd catch a glimpse of Mount Rainier, hovering phantom-like on the southern horizon, or the jagged Olympic range to the west. I felt that I would really like it here, if circumstances were a bit different. As it was, I simply observed, wandering from the library to the supermarket to the waterfront. My bank account slowly filled up again. I chipped in for rent. 


The fact that this was only temporary kept me sane. I bussed over to Missoula to check out its Forestry School, and felt more at home there after one weekend than I had after two years in Montreal. I also completed an application with Frontiers Foundation, which sent volunteers to indigenous communities in the Canadian Arctic to help in schools. To my great relief, it was accepted, and I'd be leaving for Tsiigehtchic, a tiny Gwich'in town at the confluence of the MacKenzie and the Arctic Red Rivers, on February 1st.


So I tried my best to enjoy the present. At the pizza joint, we competed to see who could fold pizza boxes or assemble a respectable pie the fastest and shared stories about the odd characters who came in off the Ave. But I felt slightly guilty the whole time. It was a huge release when I finally turned in my notice and caught a plane home, armed with plans for an adventure in the Arctic.


Had I been a bit more shrewd, I might have added a third rule to my list, one that would have saved me a good deal of grief in the future: Avoid expectations. Nothing is ever what you have in mind.








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