Appointments to keep in the city, I rose early and breakfasted with Mum. She has a habit of waking up at 6am, and sadly it is catching. Oh well, she makes breakfast pretty much every morning as well, so it is working out!
I double checked the address in Halifax. I booked an appointment to get my legs waxed before the trip to Croatia. Since we will be sailing, and hopefully it will be lovely sunning weather, I don’t really want fuzzy legs! And using the review website Yelp, I was able to find a well-regarded salon in Halifax, with quite reasonable prices. The only downside is that I have to drive into Halifax downtown, which is about an hour away from Mum’s acreage. Ah well, it is a good highway. And it looks like the downtown area is on the same side of the harbour as I currently am, so I don’t need to worry about crossing bridges which may or may not be toll bridges. Plugging the address into mum’s gps navigator, and assuring her I would treat her car with all due care and respect, I took off for the city.
Rolling along the highway, scanning the radio stations for anything that catches my ear, I found a country station playing the hits from the 90’s. Ahh, the music I grew up with. I hummed along, breaking into song every once in a while. I don’t really like to sing, as the subtle nuances of music, like being in tune, are usually lost on me. But sometimes in the car, where no one else must suffer through my warbling, I do indeed sing, making up some of the words I don’t know, and humming the rest. There is musical talent in my family tree, of that there is no doubt. Too bad it missed me!
The kms slipped by, as they are wont to do. Soon the rocky forest bordering the highway gives way to houses, getting closer and closer together. The nav advised me to take the exit coming up, and the concrete ramp soars over the highway. Saturday morning, traffic is sparse, and the sun gleamed off the water below me. The path on the map turns, I clicked over the turn signal, followed the route laid out in maroon on the little dash map. Hmm, I didn’t expect to be turning back along the direction I had been taking, but I suppose a little back and forth is typical of city driving here, with its hills and valleys. One more turn, and the road sloped gently downward. It appeared to be a fairly main road, so hopefully that would lead me into the downtown core.
Sure enough, the calm harbour of downtown Halifax appeared before me… on the other side of the water. A bridge arched over the harbour, elegant lines spanning the considerable distance. It looked firm, well designed… and expensive to build. As I came down off the hill and started up the slope of the bridge, it became apparent that the highway flyover led to the opposite side of the harbour from the downtown core, the easier to approach side. And I was on a toll bridge.
I slowly rolled up to the gates. Where was the one that said credit card? I had that trusty bit of plastic with me. Change… change… express pass….no credit card lane! I picked one next to a toll booth with a person inside, pretty much at random. The little basket clung to the pillar, demanding my exact change of one loonie, no more and no less. I dug through my change purse… two quarters and two dimes. The padded arm blocks my path, a little message displayed on a screen beside it PAY NOW. I flipped up the centre console of Mum’s car. That’s where change would live, right?!? No luck. I glanced nervously in the rear view mirror, and sure enough, a car is just pulling up behind me. No escape! No change! I looked around, feeling the pressure and completely at a loss for the correct course of action.
Just then, the toll booth operator in the next lane catches my eye. He has a resigned look to his face, a slight lift of the eyebrow and a twist of the mouth. Pushing a button on his booth dashboard, he waves me ahead. I glanced forward to see the arm raising in the air, overridden my the compassion of the toll booth operator, or perhaps just his practicality. I waved, a little abashed but very grateful, and took the course of action that had been presented to me, slipping under the arm. The road led over the sweep of the bridge, water glimmering below, boats moving slowly in the channel.
Whew, made it to the other side. And in good time for my appointment!
It is always challenging to navigate a new place, even if you actually take the time to prepare. Sometimes, it is just luck that keeps me going, and the compassion of strangers. That human touch makes travel possible, I would be so bold as to say. There are so many times when the compassion of those more familiar with the situation has been the only thing to carry the day. From the market clerk in Zagreb Croatia who showed me how to mark the fresh produce so they could be checked out, all without a word of common language, to the ticket seller at a train station in small town France who showed me how to validate my ticket, to the toll booth operator who waved me through in Halifax. It is the compassion of our fellow humans that makes it all possible.
On my way back home, I picked up a guy hitchhiking in the city. It is notoriously difficult to get a ride in a city, but he had been left by his buddies after a night of partying. I dropped him off 20 km down the road, at the bus station in his hometown.
A little act of compassion can make the next step possible on a strangers journey.
Wherever you are, Be There 