Peace and Quiet in the Garden?

This past week, I visited the Royal Botanical Gardens. Let me start off with saying how truly beautiful it is. The vibrant colors and smell of flowers and harbor views are amazing. It is a great place to relax and get some work done, or so I had hoped…

My intentions on going to the gardens were to sit by myself, have some peace and quiet, and write a paper. When I first arrived it seemed like that’s exactly what I was going to do. I walked around a bit taking in the scenery and scouting for a good shady place to sit and write. The garden was lively with people reading, chatting with friends, and relaxing, so it was hard to find a good spot that hadn’t already been taken. Finally, I saw the perfect place. There was a bench in the shade under a big tree and that a man had just vacated. It was facing the wind so my hair wouldn’t blow into my face and it had perfect harbor views. I took a sharp turn to change the direction of my path straight towards the bench. As I got about 10 feet away, I noticed that the man who had just gotten up from the seat was just standing a little ways behind it. I asked if he was still sitting there, and he told me that he wasn’t and I was welcome to take it. I gladly sat. I was eager to get this paper done and enjoy some time to myself. The man came closer to the bench and told me that he was just looking for a place to throw away this plastic bag that he had. I told him I didn’t know where any trash cans were and I was sorry I couldn’t be of more help. He proceeded to ask me where I was from and he came to sit next to me.

The man was from Colombia, probably in his 40s or 50s, he was tan and had dark unruly hair. His shirt was untucked and he had a small black backpack. His face was friendly and he was very chatty. He ended up talking to me for about an hour. Normally I would welcome the chance to meet and talk with new people but I had been looking forward to sitting alone and writing my paper. I wasn’t quite feeding into the conversation either; I mostly responded with short but still friendly replies and then he would just jump to another random topic. He shared lots of stories with me about his life, some stories that I would’ve rather not known. He was extremely open and didn’t shy away from any subject. The things he shared with me are things that I would never share with a complete stranger, but I had to act like it didn’t surprise me. I was a bit uncomfortable and taken aback at how open he was. At one point during our conversation, a spider come from what seemed like out of nowhere and landed on the back of his head. Of course I had to tell him about it, but I was uncomfortable. First of all, I don’t know this person and secondly, spiders are terrifying. To make it worse, the spider was on the back of his head so he couldn’t look at it after I warned him to shoo it away. I timidly told him that it was there and he calmly asked me what size it was, what color, what did its markings look like. I tried the best I could to describe it while standing up and backing away out of fear. He leaned forward and handed me a leather wallet sort of thing and told me to get it off of him. I had to hit him in the back of his head with the wallet. To say the least, the entire interaction with this man was not my favorite. He told me some stories that offered too much personal information about his life, he talked to me for about an hour when I wanted to be alone, and I had to hit him in the back of his head because there was a spider on him.

When I looked back at this strange time in the garden, I realized that there are so many different people in the world. Maybe being very open about your life with new people is something that is normal in the Colombian culture. Perhaps I came off as rude because I didn’t share much about myself. However, I know first hand that across cultures spiders are something to be feared. It was a little inconvenient because I had other plans for myself, but life doesn’t always go as expected. However uncomfortable and annoyed I may have been, it makes for a good story and broadened my horizons. Not everyone I encounter will have the same thought processes as I do. It is important to be open minded when coming into contact with new people because we might have no idea what sort of background they come from or what is ‘normal’ to them. You might make a plan for your day as simple as taking some time to sit alone and get some work done, but be ready for those plans to turn the complete opposite way.