Surprises

Constant happiness is curiosity. Alice Munro.

Devoid of many unnecessary things, objects, items, I keep on going, dragging the sun in my panniers, absorbing, gathering new afterimages of warm, utter astonishment. Are there really the same places I visited two years ago? The same people who chased me out of the tent into the woods, and now greet, smile, give fruits, reassure, wish a good day? And what about me? Did I change my identity? Did I switch my own personality with someone else? Maybe, if you want to get rid of what ‘s bothering you, you do not have to go to a different place, but you yourself have to turn out to be different.

In the evening, I arrive to a small village, although it could be said, it wasn’t even a village, but just a few houses, scattered carelessly on the road. The small building at which I put up my tent, stood as if nothing happened, still beautifully reflected in the water, as if nothing passed here for the last two years, as if I was here yesterday, or not even moved out of this place, just sat on the grass and ate another slice of gummy bread, with a too thick layer of peanut butter.

So there I sat, ate, and took some pictures, waiting for a meeting with another approaching amazement. That evening I didn’t put up my tent outside the blue building, which I was about to do. Before I came to it, I met Chris, a tall, thin mechanic, who invited me to his house in the backyard. Comfortable bed, food and drinks, and in the morning – an offer to go to the big top of the nearby mountain, from where I jumped straight into the sky. Well, so it happened, for a moment I finally became a bird that was watching the sun from above, or maybe it was the sun, spilled out of my panniers, yet before nightfall phenomenally shone, and filled not only the yard, but the whole area, the whole province, the whole Canada!

Jules Barbey D’Aurevilly in Les Diaboliques saysHappy men are grave. They carry their happiness cautiously, as they would a glass filled to the brim which the slightest movement could cause to spill over, or break’

Maybe I should not, because it is frivolous or inappropriate in relation to those who can’t do the same, or are not here, but somewhere else, but I don’t want to be grave, I don’t want to be cautious, I’m happy, happy as Larry, like a madman, like an idiot, like a child.

I am a complete child, and nothing more. My stature and my face may suggest that I am a grown-up person, but my mental level, my soul, my character, and maybe even my mind, do not let me fall into adults category and I will remain so, even if I lived sixty years. F. Dostoyevsky

I’m already in Vancouver, where I rested for a while in the house of immensely hospitable Mr and Mrs Rowińscy, whom I thank for their help and time spent together. Tomorrow I’ll be back in the U.S., heading south, behind the horizon, with a little rumpled, vague, but still vivid and overwhelming impression that if I go still ahead for a long, long time, then I’ll reach the line, where the sky meets the earth, and there I will find a solution to the whole puzzle.

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