Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
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On the tail end of our Spanish vacation this spring, my wife and I, fresh off the train from Cordoba, have a few hours in Madrid before heading to the airport hotel. Where better for an allergy sufferer to go but the Botanical Gardens?
I refuse to let allergies ruin our last day in Spain. Cheerfully I drag our suitcase up stairs from one terraza to the next while carrying a heavy knapsack over a shoulder. I stop frequently to blow my nose into a sodden wad of tissue.
“Look at this bonsai!” I enthuse.
“You’re a trooper,” Leslie says.
In our 30-plus years together, my wife has never once called me a trooper. Impatient and irritable, sure. Never a trooper. Ah, but today in the Botanical Gardens is different! You see, earlier in the day, I learned about a new concept called “friction-maxxing.”
Friction-maxxing means embracing inconvenience in daily life, rejecting ease and building tolerance for discomfort. The rigours of travel during these past two weeks have primed me to be receptive to the idea. My eyes are opened. The crowds, the noise and yes, the inconvenience give way to the beauty, the textures, the long, leisurely meals. If convenience was the goal, we would never leave home.
Following the monarch butterfly’s migratory journey from my garden to Mexico
This revelation comes tragically late in life – I’m 57. Even as a child, I was prone to frustration and imperious rages. My Acadian mother nicknamed me King George. Once, when my younger siblings locked me out of the house, I put my fist through a glass windowpane.
I don’t punch things these days, much, but I still boil over too easily. Such as earlier this week, while dealing with the appliances in our accommodations, which gave the impression of simplicity but seemed impossible to activate. The diabolically tricky shower alternately froze and scalded me.
I tried to make coffee using a stovetop moka pot. Like every other North American addicted to convenience, in that volatile hour before my first cup of caffeine I just wanted to push a button. Instead, the time and temperature were wrong, the grind was too fine and I burned my fingers on the pot’s fiddly hot parts. So much friction.
Now, graced with my new insight that friction is the whole point, I project beatific calm.
Now that it’s time to fly home, I’m really testing my friction-maxxing. Airports, with their arbitrary-seeming security measures, a new and mysterious European Union entry/exit process, ambiguous signage, even the washrooms with automated faucets that refuse to work, seem designed to bring me to a breaking point.
Yet, I smile. I breathe.
Then, a whole 45 minutes before boarding is to begin, I am alarmed to see passengers lining up at the gate. I don’t care when we board; I’m thinking of our carry-on luggage and I foresee a fight for an overhead bin.
Our zone, Zone 3, is called, but no one moves. We are impeded, it seems, by people belonging to other zones. We’re stuck! My equanimity dissolves.
I push our wheeled suitcase before me like a dozer, trying to get to the gate. “Excuse me, excuse me!” I bellow, my wife follows helplessly behind. The bemused crowd parts obediently.
I realize, too late, that although signposts are lacking, each zone has its own queue.
“You’re in the right lineup,” a woman says.
I refuse to turn my head to look the woman in the eye. She has spoken kindly and I hate her for it.
Friction-maxxing, what a load of crap.
We return to our line, sheepish. I have embarrassed myself in front of 300 people, in whose company I will spend the next six hours.
Once we get home, we will, as we’ve done before on returning from Europe, shun our regular drip coffee maker with its convenient insulated carafe in favour of our old French press and the mini espresso maker that has been gathering dust for years. We will even go to Value Village to look for a used moka-type coffee maker; I’m optimistic enough to buy one and cautious enough not to shell out for a new one.
In Spain, my coffee-making did improve each morning, as I learned the secrets of the electronic stovetop and made adjustments to time and temperature. Embracing friction does eventually pay off.
I will phone my mother. I provide frequent tech support for her and she always thanks me for my patience. (Does she remember calling me King George?)
I suspect that friction-maxxing, like most of my great revelations, is something I’ve long known but forget that I know. I fail and fail again – but maybe I fail better? I mean, I haven’t punched out a window in a long while.
Kevin MacDonell lives in Bedford, N.S.