Love in the Big Pit

One comfort I've found in Cardiff when I'm lonely or worried and missing close friends is that the fellow who runs the nearest corner store calls me "Lovely." The volunteer ladies at the charity shops call me "Darling." Guys in their twenties, with no irony at all, say "S'alright, Love?" when I'm squeezing to get by them at the bus stop. Now, I am aware that it's reflexive for them, it means nothing, but on my worst days, it's enough to warm my bitter aching heart a little. On a good day, it just makes me smile all the more.
And today, best of all, an old ex-miner in an orange coverall, a hardhat and a big tool belt bade me farewell with a chipper, "G'Bye, my Love."

That was at the Big Pit. I had a good time, learned a few things, and made it through another day of the jockeying (against my inclination and better judgment) with new classmates and dozens of potential new friends and rivals. We took a bus to the Pit--an hour each way of sitting next to one person who has somewhat randomly ended up beside me and with whom I will likely share classes. On the way up, I easily slid into the seat followed by the Australian who I'd met the day before. We shared a pretty comfortable chat on the ride up.

I had forgotten the details of what it's like to enter a new scene. There's the subtle scan of the room, not wanting to seem like I'm sizing people up while I'm sizing them up. The non-committal smiles if one makes accidental eye contact. Then the mental analysis of the smile shared and the potential opening for conversation as the group breaks up, or perhaps at the next class meeting. And I've got to sit somewhere. I want it to be casual, random, without too much thought, but I'm too self-conscious, can't stop thinking about whether it will seem casual and random. All of this is complicated enough in a classroom full of people from which, at the end, one must choose whether to linger or head on out with an air of purpose and self-confidence. But on a full day trip made up of multiple shufflings of groupings formed and disbanded only by our own initiation, it's downright exhausting. For instance, I've taken the easy road in the morning, and sat next to my friendly Australian from yesterday on the hour-long trip up to the Pit. But then, when we get off the bus and form a queue (they love that word here, and the act of forming one, it would seem) at the entrance to the museum, I must decide whether to stick with him, which has its obvious pitfalls of never meeting anyone else, seeming to cling and causing him the worry of never meeting anyone else, and running out of conversational topics, OR somehow find a way to mosey on without making a big deal of it, and then face the necessary task of launching a chat with one of the many strangers roaming around me. Not the mention the possibility of everyone else clinging to their newly made bus acquaintances and being left the loser in musical chairs. I moseyed. and I suffered for it. I stood around bored for awhile, eavesdropping on other conversations. I was alone for most of the next three shuffles. The queue moved forward into different rooms and sat on two different sets of pews before being led into the mine in the default groups we'd ended up near. I was alone for most of this time, excepting a couple of short lived beginnings of connections cut short by line movements. At one point the faculty chaperone even came and talked to me--an almost definite sign that my isolation was obvious and that I may have seemed more emotionally affected by it than I was. Luckily, my accent was heard by the guy next to me and he turned to start the inevitable exchange of where froms, and I've not been there, but I have been to this other place and what course are you on and so on. He was a Briton who looks a fair bit like that guy on The Naked Chef. Until he spoke to me, he had remained angled slightly away with his back to me, doubtless because I was not as young and blond as the student on the other side of him. Nevertheless, we had an enjoyable few minutes and even moved together in the next shuffle and so ended up on the same mining crew.

I won't go on with the play-by-play, but just know that this went on all day, though I managed to hook up again with the Portuguese woman from yesterday and the Australian once again for awhile. I lunched with Portugal and new arrivals Turkey and Italy. And I'm proud to report that I chose to take the plunge and sit next to a complete stranger from India for the bus trip back to town and it went just fine. She's the only other married person I've met so far. Go us.

Oh, and I talked to one of the old miner guys about Welsh, as he's learning it now after having grown up in a time when it was nearly a dead language because they weren't allowed to speak it in school or at work. It was fun and he understood the couple of things I tried on him and answered them and I understood the answers and then we together tried to remember the word for "tomorrow." For no reason at all. It was the highlight of my day. For the record, he's not the one who called me his love. Though I would have been flattered if he had.