Stopping to take this photo started a conversation

I finished reading a friend’s memoir just shy of the time it would take to watch a movie on my return flight to LAX from Minneapolis. I perused Delta’s selections, and chose a New York Times interview with Rick Steves, the expert on European travel. We landed before I could finish, but I got the gist of his theory - we can be tourists, travelers or pilgrims. I was feeling more like an explorer on my trip to the wilds of the upper Midwest.

I’d driven back from Lacrosse, Wisconsin, where my kid placed third in the Division III National track meet. Basking in his glory, I returned to Minneapolis for a tour of Prince’s Paisley Park, then drove to Minnehaha Falls, a beautiful sanctuary in the center of town. It was a holiday Sunday, and the place was packed. The falls were beautiful, but I hightailed it out of there, deciding to skip the long line that snaked around the block for the packed seafood place. Rick Steves would have approved.

I found an adorable Japanese place nearby. No line. I enjoyed an omusubi dinner, sticky rice stuffed with spicy fish roe, the other with tuna, both wrapped in crunchy seaweed. I called my partner on the stroll back to the car, which was conveniently parked in front of a Dairy Queen for this ice cream addict. As we talked, I walked the neighborhood block, and stopped to take a picture for her. We both enjoy the wild greenery and familiar feeling that this kind of environment evokes. She’s from Baltimore, I’m from Cleveland, and Minneapolis felt a lot like home.

I stopped dead in the middle of the street, not knowing that there was a woman, likely in her early thirties, right behind me. She almost smacked into me, and apologized when it was me that abruptly put on the brakes. I ended my phone call, and we started chatting. This lovely friend I hadn’t yet met told me all about her experience with ICE raids, we compared it to mine in Los Angeles, and we connected. A hug didn’t happen, but it easily could have.

When I travel with my partner or my son, I’m less likely to engage with new people, yet often, it’s what I love about travel. Because of modern technology, I’m not usually asking for directions, so I suppose this puts me in the Rick Steves category of either travel or pilgrim. Last weekend in Minneapolis, I stopped in the middle of the street to take that photo, and ended up having a 20-minute conversation with a stranger.

In Minneapolis, I spent my time conversing with the chef one night, a bartender the next. I encouraged environmental activists on a bridge, cheered with track parents in Lacrosse, walked with a former coach in the Wisconsin wilderness, and hung out with a Cross Country mom I’d met at a meet last fall. Some of these interactions did indeed include handshakes or hugs. These kinds of kinship are political acts. I refuse to be separated from my fellow humans.

If the definition of “pilgrim” is “a traveler, wanderer, or one who views their life as a journey with a deeper spiritual or moral focus,” perhaps that’s my goal when I leave home, and maybe even when I leave the house. I hope Rick Steves would agree.

Various locations of impromptu alliances

NOTE: I will likely need to change my posts to every other Thursday, or at least stick to my promise of “most Thursdays.”

More on the good reason why coming soon!