Part of this trip is about getting out, pushing myself (within reason), and disconnecting from the endless news cycle, the negativity of the 2020 election, and the continued weaponization of transgender folks. But part of this trip is also about trying to be open to the world and to see if I can rediscover a common humanity that will help sustain me through the November elections and beyond.
I’ll be honest, that last piece is hard. I tend towards antisocial on a good day and down right misanthropic on a bad day. I’ve never been an overly social person. When I get on airplanes I immediately put headphones on, even if I am not listening to anything. Nothing says leave me alone like headphones. If I’m out by myself for dinner, especially when I am traveling, I often sit at the bar and read. I don’t sit there to be social; it’s usually faster service. And, fortunately, a book is almost as good as headphones in staving off errant conversation.
But this trip is a bit different. I wrote the other day about how I have been offering to take pictures for folks and how it has led to some surprisingly pleasant, if brief, interactions. For example, as I was leaving the campground at Capital Reef National Park Sunday morning, I said good morning to an older woman walking back to her RV from the bathroom. I had noticed them come into the campground the night before with a huge TCU decal plastered across the back window of the RV. When I said good morning to her Sunday morning I commented on the TCU decal and asked if they were from Texas. She told me that her husband had gone to TCU and when she found out I was from Texas, insisted that I come over and meet him. We stood and talked for about 15 minutes and had a pleasant conversation. What was remarkable about it, though, was that it became clear very quickly that we came from two very different political and spiritual places. He told me early in the conversation that he was a graduate of TCU’s divinity school and had taught there, too, until he found it too liberal and left. I told him that I was a graduate of both Southwestern and Vanderbilt. His response was that Southwestern was nice and conservative (I decided not to contradict him) but Vanderbilt was too liberal, much like TCU. My response was something along the lines of, “Well, respectfully, I was just fine with the liberalness of Vandy’s div school” (and decided not to share how I would sometimes insist that my colleagues and I eat lunch at the div school’s cafeteria so I could try to meet some lesbians). What seemed so remarkable was that the conversation didn’t devolve from there. He took my response in stride, I took his response in stride, and we continued to talk about the beauty we found ourselves in, where we had been and where we were going, and how we both wished I wasn’t leaving so we could spend more time talking.
Since getting to Zion, I’ve had a couple of other delightful, and in one case truly remarkable, interactions. While sitting in a local coffee shop within walking distance of the park and campground Monday morning, I struck up a conversation with two women. I don’t know how the conversation started, but we ended up talking about parks in Utah and I told them about Capital Reef and showed them some of my pictures from last week. It was a very pleasant conversation and I counted it as another one of those unexpected delights.
But the real gem from yesterday was the probably almost two hour unanticipated conversation with the older Canadian couple while I was having lunch. After the coffee shop and getting some work done, I retired to the brew pub next door for beer and lunch. I figured I would sit outside in the glorious weather, drink and eat and work on my blog. Instead, the older couple next to me inquired about why they were seeing so many people get outfitted with waders and other gear. I explained it was for hiking The Narrows and the wife took that as an opening to engage me in conversation. She started by talking about how her husband had rafted down the entirety of the Colorado River and then we started talking about being outdoors. She explained they lived outside of the Canadian Rockies, we compared Rocky Mountain stories and rafting stories among other things. She explained why she was so friendly—she came from Newfoundland. I talked about how I knew of Newfoundland and had friends who had been diverted there on September 11th. She proceeded to tell me about her mother doing research to make vegetarian food for all of those stranded travelers and we both remarked on how important kindness is.
She went on to tell me that she was an OR nurse and asked me what I thought of the American health care system. Between just spending five days in Las Vegas trying to navigate that system on behalf of Lisa’s mom as well as my own ongoing challenges with getting adequate health care as a transgender man, I answered that I thought our system sucked and proceeded to explain why I thought that. What followed was a lengthy conversation about accessing health care while trans. She told me about the steps that her hospital has taken to treat transgender and gender nonbinary patients with dignity and respect. She asked me how I would want to be treated—what sort of interactions would I want, would I be offended if someone asked me which pronoun I used, and how she and her colleagues should navigate the increasing complexity of pronouns. I shared with her one of my biggest fears is ending up in an ER unable to advocate for myself with Lisa not there. I worry about whether or not I would be treated with dignity and respect, especially after watching the way my mother-in-law and other patients were sometimes treated in the skilled nursing facility she just left. And she reiterated many times that Lisa and I should just leave Texas and move to Canada.
All in all, it was one of those conversations where I was reminded that, at heart, I really still am an educator. But more importantly, it was two hours that was utterly delightful and left me feeling like I had made a real and meaningful human connection. Something that never would have happened had I not been open to the world and had kept looking at my screens.