The People I Met Today In Edinburgh

After five days and twenty emails I have been reunited with the IPad I left on the bus from Fort William to Edinburgh on Friday. It went on to Dundee and Inverness without me. It has been to more places in Scotland than I have. The wonderful staff found it and sent it back on today’s bus after the holiday weekend. So, do I have to say I lost it?

My bus was delayed so I waited by the Ember sign for an hour. Beautiful Margaret arrived wearing the same shirt. We talked. She was widowed last year after being married for sixty years. She was changing buses in Edinburgh from London, taking the Oban bus to Stirling. It was her first solo trip in this new life alone. She talked about the loss of her partner and her friend. I shared some of my observations about being widowed but I hope that I listened far more than I talked. She teared up several times and I asked her if I could give her a hug. She smiled and said, “Yes.” And, it was a real one. Her bus arrived and we parted. “Peace be with you, Margaret.”, I said. “ And, with you.”, said she.

After I had secured the IPad in my bag like I should have done on Friday, I took the Number 26 to Murrayfield Gardens. A handsome man sat down beside me. I said, “You have great hair.”

He chuckled and said, “It’s a little wild.”

“That’s what makes it great.” I told him.

I asked him if he knew anything about the giant castle on the bus route. He showed me a photo similar to the one below.

“This one?”, he asked.

“Yeah.”

“I live there.”, he told me.

“NO WAY!”, I exclaimed. Hence, all caps.

“Yes. It was a school for the deaf and blind that was divided into flats.”

So, we chatted. Where am I from, he wanted to know. I’m a nomad. An American dissident. He nodded. I told him that I needed not to be in the US because it made me so unhappy to think about my country so I needed diversions.

He told me that his best mate committed suicide last week. An artist. Doomscrolling. Overwhelmed by a world he could not change nor bear.

“Are you doing okay”, I asked with the full force of my Holy Spirit present.

There was a moment of meaningful eye contact and he said, “Yes. I’m just really worried about his wife and kid. He’s a young twenty.”

I believed that he was okay and moved on like him to the boy left behind. “Yeah. Not a grown up yet.”

His stop arrived and he stood up to go. He bid me farewell and safe journeys. I said, “Peace be with you.”

I watched out my window to take his photo on the way to the castle but he was still beside the bus giving me a thumbs up.

Going back to the first person that I met today was my lunch companion at another table. She is from Switzerland and traveling solo. We started talking about our travels and she was excited about pet sitting and workaways. She is divorced for two years now. Not doing a job she loves but retiring in two years and intrigued by new possibilities.

We had the same name and the same order. A cream scone and Earl Grey tea. She had never had one and asked if it was always eaten with a fork and knife. I said that I really wasn’t an expert. After all, I am an American but it’s really messy and sticky with jam oozing out. I told her that it was a very serious debate in Cornwall about whether you put the cream or the jam first.

We traded phone numbers and emails and paid our identical bills. We went to the ladies room or, as they say in the UK, the toilets. We said “goodbye” and I made my way to the fourth floor and the Impressionists. That is another story.