This was written mostly about a month ago.
I went on a mini roadtrip a few weekends ago with the intent of hiking. We planned to meet at 12:30pm to grab the rented car and go to Gault. At 11:40am, my friend discovered that reservations were needed and sold out for the weekend. In the next hour, we juggled a couple suggestions - including a dip into the United States - and another friend recommended Mont Tremblant. My friend who thought he was renting the car from 8am to midnight actually rented it from 8am to noon. So he bused across the city to pick up a backup car.
Our group of four set out a little after 1:30p.m. Of course, three out of four of us hadn't eaten, so we stopped at a La Belle Province a little after leaving the island. We got to a Mont Tremblant car park at 4:30pm.The driver of our group seemed pretty confused by this destination, and wandered over to a bus. "Where does the bus go?" One of us asked. "Probably where we want!", he answered. He bravely asked the bus driver where the bus went, and we were told to park in a different lot. So we got back in the car and drove to the car park over. Now, we were at the base of the Mont Tremblant tourism-city. We wandered to its feet and looked at signage, which confused us. We found a trail that we thought we could follow and immediately disagreed about the direction we should walk in. After bickering for a little while, we set off in a direction and got...lost. I'm talking about finding ourselves in a cottage car park and then onto a golf course lost. After following the golf course a little while, we found rocks and a stream and sat down and ate cookies that I brought. None of us had really dressed for the weather, either.
On the way home we took a quick (meaning half hour) detour to Hawkesbury to go to the nearest Taco Bell. Although I'm an Ontarian, this was pretty novel for me, since I've never been to a Taco Bell before. I hadn't imagined it in my head, but if I had, I imagine that it would've been exactly how I imagined it.
On paper, the day was a series of failures, and this is certainly how my grandparents took it. They had heard about me going to Hawkesbury! for Taco Bell! through the family grapevine and looked at me with raised eyebrows. I had a hard time justifying most of the decisions we made that day except to sheepishly smile. My grandfather said, "to be young!".
In most other company, this series of adventures would be defined by frustration. There is normally one leader-type who decides to take responsibility for the Success of the Outing, and feels entitled to yell at any disruptions, or, lacking a tyrant, there is an overall intolerance for foolishness.
But it's the failure of the day that is fondest in my memory. It's healing to go through the activities that, in other situations in my life, would've been a source of stress. I like failing to plan, gesturing excitedly about misguided directional intuition, complaining about a temperature I should've predicted, lying on the golf course. I like that no one turned the childishness against me. I like that we proved that the world doesn't fall apart when we're uncivilized. I like the dynamic that lets none of us feel the responsibility of being an Adult, and the silent agreement that our expectations for organization are low. Accomodations are not a burden here. I can have strange desires, express them, and follow them down their absurd path.
I want to be more comfortable around a larger variety of people. On the other hand, why? Why do anything else, when there is this? Why try to be anyone else, when I can be myself, here, in the back of a car that's headed to nowhere, and it's wonderful.