OUTTAKES CONTINUED: The Travel Epiphany is an outtake from my writing about my 2015 forty-two places Douglas Adams tour. I’m cutting a lot of 1st-person POV from the upcoming book, Forty-Two Places: Douglas Adams’s London.
This is me, age 42. Zipped up in a jacket the color of the hot cocoa I’ve been sipping. I raise a tall café glass and salute the camera. I got significantly better at taking selfies after traveling alone. In the picture, I look tired, but also relaxed. The camera caught my dreamy, half-blinking eyes, momentarily distracted from internal contemplation.
I’m ready for my travel epiphany, Mr. Adams.
Then, I waited.
Now, I remember.
Every safe, dark, nook-and-cranny table of the café was occupied when I walked in. All the seats in the corners. All the tables along back walls. All of the places I prefer to tuck myself away when in public were filled with regulars. One long common table near the front door was available for those who needed to be in and out in a moment.
I plunked down with my back to the front door. Normally I hate that. Having the back of my neck exposed; being unable to see what is about to come through the door at me.
But I was in England for only a few more hours, and honestly, I felt safe. Safe in a way I had rarely experienced in my life. I had visited more than 42 Adams-related locations. I had used four different types of transport. I had navigated 26 different underground stations.
In my head, I wasn’t even a tourist anymore. London was now my occasional home–like an occasional chair. It isn’t your favorite wingback next to the fireplace, but you really enjoy sitting in it when you have good company and want them to have the best seat in the house.
Solo travel had given me a little time to become my own good company.
But the real truth was that I’d only been alone for short stints. And much of my solitary time was while moving from place to place. Between visits with old friends, new fan-friends, and welcoming encounters with guides and strangers, I hadn’t been alone all that often.
Still, I felt like I was bravely setting my back to the door. Determined to spend a little time out of the mist and rain, journaling to understand how I felt about it all. My trip was almost over. This was officially Place Forty of Forty-Two places. But where did that leave my personal pilgrimage? Was I different? Did I now know more about how the world could be made a good and happy place without having to collapse into an egg sandwich?
For starters, I didn’t order an egg sandwich.
The significance of the woman sitting in a small cafe in Rickmansworth is monumental in the HHG books:
And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terrible, stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost for ever. This is not her story. But it is the story of that terrible, stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences.
The Preface to The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Was my pilgrimage monumental in any sense? What was I doing there? What was I waiting for? Hoping For? The mighty thought struck me that I didn’t yet know what I had gained from traveling. Tea? Enlightenment?
Seven years after this picture was taken, I can say that although I left the UK the next day thinking I was at the end of my journey, really I was only at the beginning.
My book, Forty-Two Places: Douglas Adams’s London has been open to beta readers for one month.
I invited Sixty-One people to read it.
Forty-Two readers have now done so.
I did not make that number up. It’s just what happens when you look for The Answer. You find it everywhere.
The comments and feedback from my beta readers are additional stops on my journey to share my love for literary travel. I am showing up for the people who appreciate the wacky things I love. And you know what? Love is significant.
On my last evening in London, the end of that phase of my pilgrimage, I found much more than, “We apologise for the inconvenience.” My walks in the footsteps of Douglas Noel Adams brought me closer to understanding that the Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything is sharing. Openness. Connection. Love. Or, in simpler terms, the knowing wink you get from the barista, the guy the next table over, or a loved one when they see your café number: 42.
What do you think?