My husband was away for a weekend ministry conference, which I didn’t go to because I find them socially and informationally overwhelming. But I thought hey, just because I’m spending the weekend alone, that doesn’t mean I have to stay home. So I planned a little day trip just for myself to check out some art galleries in the nearby town of Southern Pines.
Above: the coffee shop marketplace and the stuff I bought there, the crepe restaurant and its food, and the gallery.
Expectation: a relaxing drive and a fabulous day of being in my element and pretending I don’t live in a black hole (again with the hating on Fayetteville, sorry, it’s just not a great fit for some of us).
Reality: take short cut through Ft. Bragg, where GPS doesn’t work – 30 seconds of open road, windows down, hair down, radio up, and then – take a wrong turn, get stuck in the sand, try to dig out, wait for friends with truck, continue to destination, walk past all the lovely shops that closed before I got there, get lost again with dead phone until I’m so tired of driving I’m actually happy to get back.
It reminded me of this show where all these people are abducted and stuck in this fake town where they’re part of some human experiment and they can’t leave and if they find a way out they end up back in the same place and they’re like “nooo” but they have no supplies and there’s nowhere else to go.
But I did enjoy the weird phenomenon of strangers actually being nice. In Fayetteville we have some super awesome friends who would pretty much help anyone with anything (my aversion to excessive social contact notwithstanding…seriously thanks guys) and then everyone else just mean mugs me for smiling at them in the grocery store to be nice.
Drive an hour away, and the random guy at the gas station sees me checking my car and reassures me that the fluid dripping out is just from the air conditioning. The lady at the awesome coffee-shop-slash-handmade-marketplace that’s actually still open is cleaning up from a crazy coffee machine mishap and we talk about our day and handmade business. The man who sees me wandering around town stops to help out and turns out to be the owner of the main gallery I’m looking. It’s closed for renovations I guess but he walks with me and tells me a good place to eat and asks about my work. The guy by the road tells me which way to get home.
I’m not sure if what you’re getting from this is that people are nice sometimes and things work out, or that I need serious help with navigation and probably other things too, LOL.
But hey, it was an adventure, as my husband called it, and now I know it only takes an hour to get to a place where I want to stay a while and I might have some creative opportunities (haven’t heard from the gallery near Myrtle Beach) and can enjoy the creativity of others.