SFTR: Crossing Actual vs. Imaginary Bridges
The substance of life comes through improvising our way through the unanticipatable scenarios—good and hard—we all face in an interesting life.
So there I was, having a significant moment on Mars Hill. I’d—for the second time—ditched the dude who’d followed me through the streets of Athens, and was back to enjoying my first night in Greece. Aware that I was being followed, I had stopped to let him pass me, and yet he somehow ended up behind me minutes later. The nerve.
When he tried to make unwanted conversation, I lied without qualm, and told him I was going to meet my boyfriend. It’s convenient as a solo, female tourist, to pack a boyfriend story. Dude apologized and peeled off, and I made my way to the top of Mars Hill, checking to make sure he wasn’t following me.
The view was incredible, and I was trying to wrap my head around the ancient history of the hill. I was reading the sermon the apostle Paul gave on that same hill1 in A.D. 51, when who did I spy with my little eye? The dude. He’d found his way to a rock several yards behind me, and was trying to act like he hadn’t been watching me.
He’d followed me three times now, so in addition to being furious, I was also afeared. How was I going to get off this dang hill without him following me yet again? Just then two American women I’d overheard speaking Texan stood up to leave, and I asked if I could walk down the hill with them. They were willing, and doubly so, when I told them about the guy following me: “We got you, girl.” And they did. He didn’t follow, and the rest of the evening passed without incident.
Did I know exactly how I’d handle a situation like this when I embarked on the first of many adventures I’ve had in the past two years of travel? Sure didn’t. In fact, I didn’t really know how I’d handle all the anticipated or unanticipated “bridges”—until I actually had to cross them.
I didn’t really know how I’d handle all the anticipated or unanticipated “bridges”—until I actually had to cross them.
My mom used to say to me as a kid, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” I, for one, didn’t want to wait to figure out how to cross the bridge. I wanted to know when we would, exactly how, and what things would be like on the other side of the bridge. You know, small unanticipatable details like that.
What we can’t understand as kids is that things have a way of working themselves out, which has nothing to do with our attempts to obsessively control outcomes. Most of the bridges we anticipate are never actually on our path, and we’re instead surprised with other “bridge” scenarios we’ve got to improvise our way through.
“It occurred to me, then, how nearly real life resembles the first rehearsal of a play. We are all of us stumbling through it, doing our best to say the proper lines and make the proper moves, but not quite comfortable yet in the parts we've been given. Still, like players who trust that—despite all evidence to the contrary—the whole mess will make sense eventually, we keep on going, hoping that somehow things will work out for the best.”2
Gary L. Blackwood (2003), Shakespeare's Spy
In the first chapter in my Adventure in Uncertainty epoch, I’ve crossed a lot of figurative bridges. Literal bridges, too, but that’s less relevant right now. Here’s the thing, though: Most of the bridges I’ve crossed—decisions, scenarios, things-gone-wrong—were not even on the original long list of bridges I worried about crossing:
What if the Russia/Ukraine conflict worsened and spilled over into conflict outside those countries?
What if my laptop or phone, or worse—both—broke?
What if my mobile data didn’t work?
What if I didn’t actually like traipsing around Europe?
What if I got really sick or injured over there?
What if my passport and credit cards were stolen?
What if my new traipsing boots (one of two pairs of shoes I was taking) didn’t stretch out enough to be comfortable?
What if my virtual mailing address didn’t work like I hoped it would?
What if I got kidnapped? (I’ve seen Taken; I know what can happen.)
What if I got in trouble with, gosh, I don’t know, ambiguous national and international authorities—for not having a physical domicile anywhere, for not fitting the mold of a responsible adult, for accidentally breaking the Schengen rules?3
With all these possibilities, I had to make a decision as I approached my Adventure in Uncertainty kicking off in 2023. That decision was to do what Mom taught me decades earlier: Cross those bridges when—if—I even came to them. I made what plans I could, researched enough to be somewhat reassured, then took a flying leap of faith that “it” would all work itself out and that God would be in this story like He’s been in every other. (Spoiler alert: it has/is and He has/is.)
Brave souls have done similarly throughout all of human history: planned for what they could, trusted the rest to God, and gotten up each new day to keep walking forward. For, oh, millenia, we humans have all figured out how to cross whatever bridges we actually have to cross.
And guess what? Not one of the things I originally worried about happened, or if they happened, proved unsolvable.
I’ve had no major hiccups with my virtual mailing address or learning how to use it.
Besides a 36-hour bout of something miserable in Malta, I was healthy my entire trip. I was reassured by my research that my faux health insurance4 covered incidents abroad, and that I could always tap into local help with my (world-wide) church.
My international phone data worked pretty darn well. Would I have appreciated more reassurance beforehand that it would? Yes. “You should be fine,” was way less committal than I wanted my provider to be, but I had to trust it.
I did not get kidnapped. Not even once. In seven weeks of mostly solo travel, the Mars Hill incident was one of just three times I felt afraid for my physical safety.
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Have there been hiccups along the way? Heck yes. But here’s the thing—the only things that went “wrong” were things I couldn’t have anticipated. And I figured them out when they happened.
Train strikes. Being cold, a lot. Unexpectedly navigating laundromats in all kinds of places. Dealing with a quickly-draining cell battery. Navigating the sprawling Madrid airport to meet my friend, newly arrived to spend a week of travel together. Renting a car via a budget car rental agency in Seville. And so much that’s happened in life since that trip. Three mice perishing in my car, for example. That’s a story for another time…
As I try to think of more challenging scenarios I stumbled through, though, I’m realizing just how many more unexpected good things happened than problematic things. Maybe there’s a lesson in that…
It could just be me, but crossing these unexpected bridges—the good and the challenging ones—seems to be one of the main and most interesting jobs of life. It’s where all the stories come from. It’s also seems that these sometimes small, unanticipated bridges are what figuratively move us from who we were, to who we’re going to be.
Maybe even sketchy Athen’s Dude will figure out this same thing. And stop following female tourists.
Acts 17:22-31: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2017%3A22-31&version=KJV
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/83382-it-occurred-to-me-then-how-nearly-real-life-resembles
https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen-borders-and-visa/schengen-area_en
I participate in what’s called a health share—a much less expensive and worthy alternative to traditional insurance self-employed friends might want to consider. Mine is called Zion Healthshare with the tagline, “Your community-based alternative to health insurance.”
Curiosity, tenacity, and optimism are a superpower trifecta. Fun read!