Beauty and kindness again. . .

Having just finished a month-long trek through Eastern Canada and New England, I’m happy to share some of the beauty and kindness I discovered.

Québec City’s Historic District, with its cobblestone streets and New France and British and Romantic architecture. The province’s sweeping green countryside, at times resembling Provence, France, with its fields and bales of hay and low-lying mountains. New Brunswick’s rocky dirt trails leading through rugged forests and along rivers and marshes. Nova Scotia’s hazy orange sunsets and coastal views of the Atlantic, after Halifax’s surprisingly charming downtown and ornate, colorful Public Gardens. Southern Maine’s delightful, rugged beauty — invariably with water views — and wild blueberries for sale on the side of the road. Portsmouth, New Hampshire’s Colonial, Georgian, and Federal styles of architecture leading to the state’s handful of beaches along its short strip of ocean. And finally, coastal Massachusetts’ venerable maritime charm, winding into Boston’s modern downtown.

What enriched this physical beauty for me was a wonderful human aspect: colorful flowers or piles of firewood for sale along country roads, all on the honor system. No one was around; the owners had the trust in visitors that they’d leave the money asked for. These sights were perhaps even more powerful for me because they brought me back to my childhood, when on rare occasion our family would drive out to Long Island and see cobs of corn for sale in the same way. What a difference from the cynical big city.

On this trip I found kindness that helped me in tangible ways. Rolling along farm roads toward Pohénégamook, Québec, I felt increasingly anxious. I needed to reach my motel in that tiny town by 10 p.m., when the reception closed. But the hills I came upon were brutal and increasingly delayed me. As the sun fell, I tried charting the flattest route forward on my phone, but because of a technical glitch, I couldn’t get cellular data with my American SIM chip. I chose the shortest route on the map I had, but it turned out to have significant elevation changes. I fretted about arriving in Pohénégamook, population under 3,000, with everything closed and no place to spend the night. Indeed, as I rolled through town past 10, very little was open — generally bars — and I finally came to the motel to find... no one in the office.

As I turned around, I saw a guy walking down the catwalk from the other end. “Bonjour!” I called out.

It was one of the proprietors. I profusely apologized for my delay, but he said it was okay. He and his wife thought I might have gotten delayed, and they had waited for me. They also knew that trucks plied these roads and hoped that nothing had happened to me. They only had one other customer right now and no one coming in tomorrow after me, so I could stay until the following afternoon if I wanted. I said good night and came into my charming, if simple, room to find a folded bike map of the region next to a lovely note on the bed from his wife: “Hello! Hope that you had nice trip. Enjoy your sleep here!” — along with a smiley face.

Along the southern coast of the Nova Scotia peninsula, I had reserved a room in a hostel. Check-in time at this oasis in the remote village of Port Mouton was between 3 and 5 p.m. With some trepidation, I messaged the host beforehand and asked if I could still check in if I arrived later. To my great reassurance, she said yes, she’d be there all evening.

Indeed, it was early evening when I reached the town right before it, tired and hungry. There would be no place to get food around the hostel itself, so I texted the host and asked if I could at least take the time to get some take-out here, if not actually eat at the restaurant. “You should eat in and relax, enjoy it!” she replied. “I will be here all night so 9:30 is perfectly fine, again, no rush.” Thanks to her generosity, I was able to have a nourishing dinner on a deck overlooking a beach with gentle waves rolling in from the sea. When I did finally make it to the hostel at dusk, the woman was very welcoming.

On my last night in Portland, Maine, I looked around my hotel room for my driver’s license and credit card but couldn’t find them anywhere. I asked at the front desk, but the clerks said nothing had been turned in. One offered to leave a note for the manager and said I could try checking again the next morning. Either way, though, I’d have to leave the next day for my next stop, Portsmouth, New Hampshire — over 50 miles away.

I began making a list of all the places I had been to recently: a restaurant, a supermarket, a sporting goods store, a bus and train station, a museum... Yes, I could order a new driver’s license and a new credit card, but the new license would probably cost a lot, and I’d have to wait for it to be mailed to me. I had two more hotels I needed to check into on this trip. Would they allow me to do so without a physical driver’s license?

The next morning, the manager on duty said nothing had been turned in. With a mix of anxiety and resignation, I began calling down the list of places where I most likely had dropped the cards. The first happened to be the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, the previous town I had been in. To my relief, the woman who answered the phone said that, yes, they had found both! She would have contacted me, she added, but didn’t have my info. She had turned them into the Bowdoin security office and said I should call over there.

I checked out of my hotel, locked the bike to itself outside the reception area, walked up the street to catch an express bus, rode 45 minutes up to Brunswick, and — not having called beforehand, because... hey, it’s a security office... they’re open all the time, right? — waltzed up to the window. The officer behind the glass said that only two people had access to the safe, and neither was here right now. And was I going to be around for a while?

Ack!! No! I needed to get back to Portland ASAP so I could start on today’s ride in the opposite direction down the coast!

The officer called one of the two people who had access to the safe, as I waited with bated breath. It turned out that that guy was nearby, and, yes, he was willing to come over.

When he showed up, he opened the safe, retrieved a manila envelope, and had me sign a slip. The driver’s license and my card were now back in my possession. I wouldn’t need to request new ones, and I was guaranteed to be able to check into the hotels. I rushed back down to Portland, told the receptionist at the hotel that I had found the cards, unlocked my bike, and continued on my way, arriving in Portsmouth several hours later than expected but in otherwise good shape.

The motel proprietors didn’t have to wait up for me, but they did. The hostel host didn’t have to let me check in later, on her personal time, but she did. Whoever it was who actually found the driver’s license and credit card in the museum didn’t have to turn them in (they could have actually used the credit card), but they did. That other officer didn’t have to come open the safe for this unannounced visitor, but he did. All of these people helped me when I really needed it.

Amazingly, one of the most heartwarming experiences of the trip came after I returned to Chicago the other day. Knowing I’d be away for a month, I had sought out someone to host my four small plants. When I asked at my local florist, the proprietor said she’d be happy to watch over them — and no, there would be no charge. When I insisted on paying her, she said we could work it out after I got back.

The other day, she was delighted to tell me that the plants had done just fine in their temporary home. Not only that, but because of their beauty, some people wanted to buy a couple of them! Sure had to explain that, unfortunately, they weren’t for sale. When I asked how much I could give her for her troubles, she said it wasn’t necessary. Then, when I tried to give her a couple of bills, she only reluctantly accepted one of them — to buy some coffee, she said.

This woman had gone out of her way to house and water plants that had meaning to me. She would not be able to pay her rent by doing that for free. She did what she did strictly out of care for the plants and kindness toward me.

When I asked her when they’d need to be repotted, she said we could wait until the spring. Clearly she was not trying to get money out of me; she only wanted what was best for the plants. On top of this, the knowledge that these living things that I’ve been taking care of for a couple of years now brought some beauty into a few people’s lives touched my heart. It let me know that I made a tiny impact on this world for the better.

Sometimes the beauty and kindness and selflessness are out there on our journeys far away. Sometimes... they’re in the everyday, real life we come back to.