"I believe curiosity can be a virtue."

Tonight, in a pathetic attempt to move forward, I went to see Anthony Bourdain's lecture at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh.  It struck some chords.  I don't even know that much about the guy, but his drive, knowledge and confidence make me want to be just like him.  Sort of like Henry Rollins or Chuck Palahniuk, some people just exude this extraordinary brilliance of truth and honesty with themselves.  And they're able to reflect that honesty back onto the world around them and say, "You're fucking idiots, and here's why."  And they tell them!  This is something, as of late, I have not been able to do.  My confidence has just been shattered and trampled by a slow and meandering break up.  The kind I thought would never happen again after the first one like that.  You know the one: the girl says everything is fine, and you know it's not, and you don't look at each other the same.  Suspicion and jealousy take over, and you'd have to have a serious case of autism to not read in their face that something is going on behind those eyes.  And it's all the time.  Like I said, it just drags itself out, leaving you questioning what kind of person you are more than what she did to you, or how she was wrong.  How could you be so stupid to not know what to change way back then?  You're left with a billion questions, and they're different for each individual.  That's just the one churning in my head, over and over, until you're too tired to keep your eyes open so you pass out, and get a few hours of peace until you wake and that empty feeling pulls everything from your guts that was keeping you whole.

But I digress.

So, Tony (yeah, we all called him Tony after the show) was talking about what it is to be civil and respectful and open when traveling.  Something I've always believed in, but some of my travel partners have been bad at.  He spoke on how the worst vacations always end up being so because you plan them out too much.  There's not enough time to truly explore your new environs because the time schedule won't allow it.  Every minute of every hour is nailed down with a place and activity you need to be doing, and that's no way to vacation.  You don't live that way (hopefully), so why would you vacation that way.  I can't pretend to be naive to the fact that making plans and following a schedule makes you feel like you can get more done in the short time you have between the days you spend at work in the real world.  I know the minute I leave work the day before a vacation, I'm already thinking of what time I need to go to bed that night so I can get up early and get in the car and on the road.  And that's not so bad.  Maybe.  At least it gets me to where I want to be more.

It's in how you dress, and how you carry yourself and what you eat and how you walk and where you walk.  It's that confidence that makes me admire Mr. Bourdain in the first place.  But it's also having the humility to admit you are a stranger in a land not your own.  To admit when you've screwed up some local custom and apologize.  To turn the wrong way down a one-way street and say, "I am not local, and I apologize for overlooking your signage and putting your community at risk."  And if that seems like a terrifically acute example, it's an inside joke.

My best vacations have been the one's where I admitted I was there to be curious and explore.  My worst vacations were the ones where I tried to be a local, and that gets you nowhere.  If you think you can blend in so well, go to a local attraction in your city and see if you can tell who the locals are and the tourists.  I guarantee you'll correctly pin them 98% of the time.

One vacation in particular that comes to mind was a business trip my Mom took one summer.  It was to Asheville, North Carolina, and her company was putting us up at the Grove Park Inn - a nationally recognized resort for the rich and jet set crowd.  Lots of golfing and spa treatments and history and all that.  For three days I got to hang out in this palace of a hotel with little shops, restaurants and endless hallways and hidden nooks to run around.  We had visited this place before to sit on the large sun deck they have in the rear of the main wing.  We would sip drinks and watch the sunset and have family time before leaving to come back to the capital city, back to the drudgery of our daily lives.  It was always great, and something I look forward to every time I'm in the mountains.

One night, my Mom and sister had gone to bed, and I couldn't sleep so I got up and went to walk around the hotel.  I wanted to see the place for what it was.  I had heard stories of all the famous people that had stayed in the original old wing of the resort; presidents, actors, F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed there!  He had a room named after him.  So, there are these old elevators built into the sides of a massive stone fireplace in the main hall.  They are still operated by lift attendants.  They go up two floors and down one from the main floor.  I had to ride in one.  Once I stepped inside I was instantly transported back to a time when Fitzgerald or Roosevelt could have been riding alongside me. The attendant was in a nicely pressed suit and tie with white gloves, and the elevator itself looked to be bronze.  It shone inside like the Statue of Liberty must have right after it was built.  The attendant and I were talking, and he got into the history of the old building.  I'm sure he did this with everyone that showed even the slightest interest, but I showed genuine curiosity, and it was rewarded.  I got the dirt on the old building.  I got the story of the haunted room, the Pink Lady, who will tear apart your suitcase while you're out of the room, and leave the bed in shambles after the housekeepers have made it up for the day.  She haunts one room, and he pointed it out, showing me where she fell from the inner balcony overlooking the common hall in the middle of the antique building.  Of course it sent shivers down my spine.  Then, we went back down and he showed me the lower floors where the laundry and other services take place.  He was able to do this because his shift was ending, so he stepped off the elevator and showed me around the basement where guests weren't allowed.  This may seem boring, but to someone who was into the history of this hotel, it was breathtaking.  He told me all kinds of things, and when he was ready to go, we rode the elevator back to the main floor and said good evening, and he went to his home and family.

If I wasn't tired before, then I was buzzing now.  I needed to calm down.  I had my bag with my writing notebook in it, and I walked out to the deck with a cranberry and seltzer cocktail and sat down to write a bit.  I was getting some good stuff down when a couple called me over to their table.  I forget why they called me over, but they wanted me to join them.  Probably wanted to know what I was writing.  We exchanged our stories.  I was a junior at St. Andrews Presbyterian College.  They were Canadians on a vacation to bury her father.  Turns out he had been the elevator attendant for some fifty years, and had just died a few days before, having spent the entirety of his working life with the hotel.  Carolyn and Dave Turpie were their names.  We talked about writing and life and watched the stars pass overhead for a good while.  They told me the hotel, for her father's years of service, had put them up in the presidential cabin for the week.  Actually, the hotel manager said they could stay as long as they wanted (or until a president showed, or Tom Hanks, who apparently stays there when in Asheville).  They said the place was littered with snack trays and drinks and I should come back with them and help them finish some food off, and get a night cap.  So, having had an advantageous night of curiosity, I strolled through the main hall, out the front doors and off into the wooded land beyond the front parking lot.  It was massive.  The size of a large home, and appointed in a style befitting Gatsby or Rockefeller.  Mission furniture and large Oriental and animal skin rugs. It was the typical hunting lodge from any period film.  And like they said, there were deli trays covering a giant table in the dining room.  We sat and ate rolled cold cuts on butter crackers.  We drank our drinks, cranberry juice for me, and they had beers.  We were cooling down.  Carolyn took my notebook and began reading through the few pages I had filled.  It was new at the time.  I still have it.  I was about five pages in at the time, and it was mostly angsty freshman-in-college crap.  I was still working through some things that had followed me from high school.  But she was moved by them.  She was a little tipsy at that point in the night, but she was really moved by my writing.  That was kind of the first time a stranger had really given me any notice just reading my work for the first time.  Without knowing anything about me.  It made me feel really good.  As I look back tonight, maybe not that good because I'm still working on filling up the same notebook, but at the time, I was flying.  Dave didn't read it.  He went on the review his wife gave, but we exchanged addresses, and talked late into the night.  When I left the night air was cold, and we smiled and waved, and they said I should stop by the next night, but we left the next day.

That night and the way everything fell into place, I'll always remember that.  Knowing that a smile and positive attitude towards the world can open so many doors.  Doors you would never be able to get through if you didn't have $10,000 a night to spend on a cabin on top of a hill.  I loved that night, and there have been a few more nights like that.  Things you can't capture in photos, and most of the time, you're the only one that is going to know they happened, and you can tell people the story repeatedly, but they'll never appreciate the gravity of that night, under those stars and pines, on top of a hill in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Thanks Tony.