The Englishman.

Last summer when I was at home visiting I decided to take the scenic route home from Tromsø. At the ferry stop I was the fifth car in line for the ferry as it took off....FULL! So I had to wait for almost two hours for the next ferry to arrive. In my rush to catch the ferry I had passed a few cyclists on their bikes. They all had some luggage packed on their bikes and I felt a sting as I passed them. It looked like such an amazing experience. And there I was rushing along the road past the most amazing scenery, going too fast to even notice most of it.
As I was sitting on the rocks enjoying the beautiful afternoon, the Englishman came riding up on his bike, slowly and peacefully. It was a beautiful sight. I watched him from afar, wondering what his story was; what brought him up to this corner of the world. Definitely not a ride for the faint of heart. After a while I went down from the rocks, and slowly walked up to him. It was almost like he was waiting for me because he struck up conversation before I had a chance to. It was an interesting sight; a man about 50 years old, wearing casual hiking clothes and smoking his pipe. His story was even more interesting. It was now early July and this man had been riding his bike for almost four months; from England to France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Estland, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and now Norway. His goal was to make it to North Cape. This he had accomplished about mid June. So now he was "cruising" back to Bergen, from where he was to catch the ferry back to Newcastle, and then bike home. I wondered what had motivated him to do a trip like this; biking about 60 kilometres a day for months on end. He had gotten so used to sleeping outdoors that when he on occasion would get a room, he would miss the hard ground. His stories about his travel experiences were amazing! Now the ferry had arrived and we needed to get ready to board so we agreed to have a drink together on the ferry. I was curious and I needed to find out what motivated him to do this. Finally I was enlightened; his wife had had an affair and left him for her new partner. He was totally devastated and needed to get far away from her. He sold his business (potatoes) and decided to go to the North Cape. He thought that the trip would help him heal his wounds. My next question was direct: "Did it?" "NO, not yet", and now he was less than a month away from being back home again. The interesting thing was that this man had chosen to escape, hoping that time and distance would heal the wounds. But, it would turn out to be harder than that. The important part of working through the pain had been missed, and there he now was on the ferry with me, emotional and still troubled by his experience.

The Englishman had taken time to be with himself; he documented and wrote in his journal, but did not work through his stuff. I, on the other hand, had been diligently working though my stuff, but not taking the time out to truly be quiet and present. Neither of our processes were complete. We had each done portions of it, and at the point of meeting realized that we both had other parts to complete. No wonder I was feeling at a loss when I drove away and saw him on his bike in my rearview mirror.