Today, I laid two hard working soles to rest. These two have been uplifting me with tireless effort for the last 3 years. Through homes, relationships, jobs, and more they have been the canvas of possibility. They helped me with fashion and confidence, always pushing me out my door come rain, snow, or hail. They limited their capabilities from the start, telling me they weren’t made for adventure, and still they took me to the peaks of mountains, through the sandy beaches, and over hundreds of miles of pavement. It broke my heart to see them torn apart after so many years of steadfast reliability. And yet, all good things must come to end, and I would rather respect their memory than continue the dynamic, eventually growing to resent an unreliability I ultimately caused. Rest in peace my friends. Adiós, amores. You will be missed.
Here’s hoping your grey successors can live up to your name.
Yeah, I’m ready to head back to the States. It isn’t that Manitoba isn’t great, I just felt a desire to head back South. And what a day to head back South! The weather was so good I felt compelled to get ice cream! You know how long its been since I was able to eat ice cream outside in bare hands without feeling cold?
The real reason I left Manitoba early is because they didn’t have any Planet Fitnesses outside of Winnipeg and I wanted a shower. And on my way to Minot, ND, which also happened to contain a mosque for tonight’s Eid celebrations, I passed by the International Peace Garden. So obviously I had to stop by!
The facility shares space between Canada and the United States and either side can enter without issue, but leaving you have to go through customs. Which is pretty funny, but I like it. Unfortunately, most all of the walking paths were unmaintained and unwalkable because of the snow. Still, the Interpretive Center was open, so I still got a good experience walking around some plants. The only thing to engage with at the center was their greenhouse of desert plants and it was like I walked into a different longitude. The air was pleasantly warm, the sun was shining bright, and the visual diversity of plants is something I haven’t seen since California. The thing about the East Coast is that the nature feels breathtakingly old and majestic, but it has a cohesive theme. Nothing really tries to stand out unless you go in spring and see all the flowers bloom. With these desert plants however, they all had unique visual styles and recognizable profiles. The need to adapt to a harsher environment will do that to a plant.
I would’ve stayed there all day just reading and basking in the slightly musky smell of nutritious soil, but the adventure called and I was back on the road. The border agent was shockingly friendly and we connected on the wonderful elements of Ohio. Usually when I cross the border, I refrain from making small talk or offering unnecessary words, but the border was empty and the dude was chill, so I was able to get two recs for places to go in North Dakota. The Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Lewis and Clark Trail will be attended by yours truly. I feel like North Dakota will be the first place I’ll be able to see unfiltered prairie, so I am pretty psyched.
To cap off my day, I wanted to visit a mosque to catch the Eid celebrations. I attended Maghrib services at the Islamic Society of Minot and was met with disappointment. Nothing was different. I can’t catch a break with Islam! I want to hear a sermon and hear the applied wisdom of Allah on daily life! And instead, I got the same service as I always do. Dejected and frustrated, I went to the back of the room after service ended and checked some notifications. I made a LinkedIn post, so my phone was blowing up. I was preparing to leave when one of the brothers stopped by and offered me a smell of a new fragrance oil he got. I can’t exactly remember what happened after that, but next I knew there was a ring of chairs set up around the bench and I was being taught about Islam. Here are the noteworthy points:
I internalized today that Muslims believe they belong to Allah. They way I understand it (which could absolutely be wrong) is that we are sort of “on loan” from Allah. We all start as Muslims, then the world, which is complicated, pulls us away from god. It is our responsibility to pray, not for Allah, but for ourselves. It still doesn’t click fully, but at this point, I don’t think it will unless I get a new perspective. Islam is a very strict religion, which means all the rhetoric stems from the same source without wiggle room.
Eid is celebrated in the morning. Damn. Luckily, there is a second Eid next month, so I’ll be sure to get the special prayer and hopefully be in a place with a full mosque. I have no issue being in a mosque with 5-10 brothers, but with more brothers, I’m more likely to find a speech-prone imam.
I’m feeling deja vu walking into mosques now. It isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but Islam (at least in the United States) is so unified in prayer and practice. I have been focusing up on Islam, and I’m almost missing the diversity of architecture in Churches. I’ll always like Synagogues the most because they are pretty much always beautiful buildings, but I am absolutely biased.
Today was a good day. I said goodbye to Canada for a while and to my faithful shoes, and I said hello to some new, welcoming faces at the mosque. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do tomorrow, all I know is I will need to be very careful and very lucky driving my EV in the Dakotas without issue. I am approaching the sparse charging spots of the nation, and the weather still isn’t where I need it to be for maximum range.
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