Arkansas Traveller

I like it when I see different license plates. It gets my mind travelling to the why they are here and who they are. Not a Michigan plate, or one from Quebec, New York, or Ohio, but one from further afield. Thursday morning there was someone from Arkansas in front of me on the way to London 8 AM in the snow. Why was this Southern US person here?  There it is, a license plate as an acknowledgement of difference, I know something, the car is from away, and likely the driver is from away as well. The lack of familiarity is shallow, though.

The car is a Mustang one of the most recognizable cars in North America. The driver of course is following the rules of the road and I am sure Arkansas road law is very similar to ours. To punctuate this a School Bus slows and turns on the red safety lights, the Arkansas Mustang instinctively slows and stops. The driver is in the same cultural place as I am regardless of the 1600 KM distance from their home to ours.  I assume if the driver stopped at a restaurant and I followed they would address the wait staff in English (though the accent may indicate something to the waiter about the customer, but we’ve heard it before) and if they needed to pee and the driver was a man or woman they would know what the various types of signs that indicate male and female facilities mean. I have a comfortable feeling about the person from Arkansas.

What if the world was bigger, or cars slower, or travel complicated somehow, if we didn’t have access to international media? What if I had never seen a license plate other than one from Ontario? What if either Mustang was not sold in Ontario or the Arkansas car was a make and model totally foreign to me? What if the Arkansas traveller did not know the red school bus light rule and by their driving I could observe the hesitation to react but due to the queue of the cars around then they finally do. We stop at the restaurant and the language is English but what if I and the waiter had never heard an accent like the one the traveller possessed? What if the bathroom signs were the type without words and the Arkansas person hesitated in their choice? What if the Arkansas Traveller was the same in every way except for a very few social, cultural, material queues, but my field of experience was way different? How would I feel?

I am secure with the real Arkansas Traveller she/he is no threat or little wonder to me. The hypothetical Arkansas person by my lack of experience and their slight difference would raise more concern. The person and their home would be no different but my emotions, would be. My gut would be.

It is not my fault that my feeling differs for the hypothetical Traveller. It is certainly not the fault of the person from imaginary Arkansas. What is my responsibility when I feel fear, worry, and discomfort? I cannot help my feelings, my fear, I can help my reaction. I acknowledge that I own my feeling not the Traveller. If I create a narrative good or bad in my head it is my narrative not that of the stimulus.

Travellers (and newcomers) to Canada, to Ontario. I will deal with that which I create in my own head, it’s mine to own and I will rise to welcome you.