Every story has to start somewhere, but where exactly? Figurativeness dictates that a story is born with the storyteller. Literalness would argue that it begins with a word – but what is a word? According to Peter Brooke, a word does not begin as a word, but as an idea that is interpreted and given a physical manifestation on a page to be shared with the world. I, my friends, am a mix of both. Born and raised an agnostic of religion, life, and everything else, I’ve relied on aspects of my life to form opinions and reactions – but not anymore. Now I’m finally getting around to taking charge of my life and searching out new information and matching it with my own opinion and reaction. And I am on a quest: a quest to travel, a quest to explore, a quest to discover. I hope you’ll join me as I take on a “lil adventure” around Europe
Paradise, my friends, is a myth. Its not a Caribbean beach, or a trek in Peru, or a journey across the Sahara desert, or scuba diving off the coast of Australia. Its a state of mind. A playground of mundane amusements can become a world to discover in proper sunlight
I woke up this morning to a gray and dreary day in a small city called Wolverhampton in the middle of England. I won’t pretend that this is in any way, shape, or form a beautiful city. To be perfectly honest, it’s a dump. A pit stop on the way to a better place. I arrived on the train earlier yesterday morning, and it seemed like any other English town – although I think this is mostly to do with the thick layer of fog that covered the city: the wind was cold, the streetlights weren’t functional, there was litter along the sidewalk, no one made eye contact with you… the usual. However, only after I checked into my hotel for the night did the afternoon winds blow away the fog to reveal a city in desperate need of a new coat of paint – really more like 4 new coats of paint, but I’m trying to be optimistic.
A knock on my door prompted me to get out of bed. I didn’t ask for a wakeup call, but I was told that someone would be meeting me to take me to the airport to catch my plane in the evening – but I had hours to go for that. I opened the door.
Standing in front of me, dripping wet from the knees down, was a not unhandsome man of average height wearing dark jeans, a black shirt, a gray sweater, and a black cloth coat: “Well ‘ello there young miss, m’name’s Mitch. I’ve come to take you to the airport.”
When he spoke, I was instantly calm. I explained to him that my flight wasn’t for another half a day and that he wouldn’t need to take me until then, yet he insisted that he show me around the town before I leave. Truthfully, I wasn’t at all up for spending more time than I needed here, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Some start to my “adventure”, I thought to myself.
By the time we got into the main town, past the burned-down pubs and abandoned buildings, there was little of interest to see… Mitch pointed out some clothes shops, makeup shops, restaurants, pubs and the odd museum here and there. Quaint atmosphere, but still not very pretty. We traveled around for about a good 4 hours (surprising, I know, but the time passed quickly) until we retired to a coffee shop near where Mitch had parked his car. By this time, we’d talked about simple details of each other – where do we work, where are we from, etc – and got into some more intricate arguments over which movie is better than the other, but we hadn’t really gotten to know each other. There was one question I was dying to ask him, and when he got back to our table with the coffee and snacks, I blurted out: “Why here?”
I think I stunned him a bit because he took a moment to answer, but I didn’t need to explain myself – he knew what I meant. Throughout the day he could see me make faces about the cleanliness and hygiene of the people and places we visited, and could obviously sense my urge to leave, but he never commented on it. He responded to me in a cool and collected manner, simply stating that, “This is paradise. Why would I ever leave?”
No doubt that with me and my strong opinions, I was quick to condemn what he said. Nonetheless, this sparked a heated discussion of what paradise really is. Mitch has been around. He’s traveled a fair bit in his life, and has always come home to the same house, on the same street, in the same town, in the same country in which he was raised. So I had respect for him; he knew what he was talking about. Somehow, in the matter of 2 hours before we left for the airport, he managed to convince me that Wolverhampton was paradise. Even now, as I retell these events to you, my friends, I can’t believe it. There is hope in this town: a hope for the people to become better citizens, a hope for old, decrepit buildings to be restored to a new glory, a hope that travelers make lasting friendship with the locals and expand each’s horizons. A world of opportunity in this small town.
And so, I finally get my point: even in this small, dreary town in the middle of nowhere, there is hope. And that is his paradise! Hope. The endless possibilities of finding a new adventure or meeting someone who can pave a new road in the journey we call life (cheesy, but true). If Mitch, a self-professed hypochondriac and pessimist with little inspiration to change the world (let alone move to the neighboring town of Shrewsbury – which I’m told is beautiful in comparison), can say that this place is paradise, then what’s stopping the rest of us from appreciating what we have as if it were paradise. Who knows, to those less fortunate, it just might be.
So I hope you’ll enjoy this path to paradise as much as I will – I’ll admit that that place wasn’t as un-incredible as I made it out to be. Join me on this journey and you too might learn what it’s like in someone else’s paradise.
I’ll leave you with some wise words that really stuck in my mind after Mitch said it:
“This place looks like crap in the rain, but like shit in the sun. It’s a right miss, but it’s my mess, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
With love from paradise,
Amita
The next stop on Amita’s Adventure: Edinburgh, Scotland!
With Love, From Paradise: Wolverhampton