PrintThere is a camaraderie amongst travellers. They share stories, meals, secrets, sometimes beds. People met are nostalgically remembered months, years, decades later. On the road conversations are more interesting; silences are understood and appreciated.
From the window of a train countries seem more scenic; events are remembered more clearly. The senses, when so sharpened, fill us with wonder of the world we travel. The traveller absorbs, unwittingly, the best and the worst of all he experiences.
It's been almost a year since I came back from Germany. One night soon after I arrived home, I met an old friend for a drink.
“I need to talk to you,” Hilary, a fellow traveller, (she was born in England, raised in Singapore, and now lives in Vancouver), had told me earlier that day.
“Well?” I asked her as we slipped into seats at the bar. Sitting next to her felt safe, like burrowing into a comfy sweater. I leaned back and watched the bartender place our drinks on the table.
“I heard about the lessons you gave today,” Hilary said, as I ordered our second round.
“Yeah?” I watched her run her fingers through her tangled brown hair. I leaned back a little, leaving room on the counter for the beer.
She looked back at me, full in the face, for the first time since I'd picked her up, “You made Miya cry, you know.”
I moved my beer around the table. I could feel the condensation from the glass running onto my hands. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I was helping her.”
“My God, Tik, she was in tears after! I'm glad you don't help me. What did you do?”
How to explain? How to say that I only pushed her because she is so talented, because I see so much potential.
“I was working on her position. Asking her to keep her hands still mainly. Shoulders back. Working on transitions.”
She took a sip of her beer and looked at me, “You have to be careful. You don't want to turn into that person.”
“What person?” I asked, still holding the full beer.
Hilary laughed. “She's 16 you know. Riding is supposed to be fun.”
“Riding is dedication and perseverance. Hard work.”
“Sure,” Hilary slipped her almost-empty pint glass to the back of the table and stood up. “I have to visit the loo,” she said and turned away.
When she came back we talked about her horse and her plans for next year. We didn't talk about my lessons again. We didn't need to.
And now, a year later, I arrive home again—from Texas this time. I see the same people, and I teach the same students. Some of them, I hope, are glad to see me.
“When are you going away again?” Miya asks after her lesson. I tell her I'm not sure, it depends on where I can find a job.
“Why are you going away?” Miya looks down from under her helmet at me.
I pause. I stand there and all the reasons flash through my head like in a child's flip book. What would she say if I told her I was on a personal journey? What if I explained that I'm on a transcendental bus ride that leads to understanding—understanding I say—combined with the need to learn and excel? What if I told her it was not about medals at all? What if I said I was leaving because? Just because I want to.
Marcel Proust once wrote: “We cannot be taught wisdom, we have to discover it for ourselves by a journey which no one can undertake for us, an effort which no one can spare us.”
