Snow go

Do you want a life changing experience?






As opening lines go, that one got my attention. It being the south east’s annual snow-bound-so-stay-at-home Monday, I was sitting at the kitchen table smoking and reading the small ads at the back of the London Review of Books. I’d already completed my day’s quota of snow-related experimentation:

• driving to work and managing to get the car stuck in four wheel drive mode
• staring out of the window, silently calculating exactly how many flakes it would need for me to depart without showing undue haste
• popping out at lunch time to buy some curtains for the barn kitchen – a random privacy thing
• finding the door to the office locked on my return - thanks for telling me guys...
• driving back to the barn again barely three hours after arriving at work and finding that I was one of very few fools left on the road
• hanging said curtains up whilst simultaneously coaxing the Rayburn into fire and making tea
• walking the dog around the orchard, throwing snowballs for him to fetch
• laughing when the ex slipped over in the snow and landed on his butt (divine retribution is a marvellous thing)

So the only obvious thing left to do was to sit and read. And there it was, the beguiling line at the top of a box advert from a TV production company:

Do you want a life changing
experience? We are looking for
women who have a sense of adventure and would
like to spend a month living with
a remote tribal
community.

A life changing experience. Is it even possible to plan such a thing? Surely life changing experiences are ones that come and grab your ankles when your head is happily in the clouds and you’re not looking where (or in what) your feet are treading? I mean, I know people set off travelling the world in search, of, well, whatever it is they are hoping to find – themselves, someone else, hallucinations, cheap beer, religion, freedom, a day-glow-pink Chrysler. But does anyone actually set off in search of a life changing experience, as if it is a destination in its own right like Disneyland, say, or Cheddar Gorge? Maybe. I don’t know.

The concept held a lot of appeal in any event so I downloaded the application form from the website. It was full of interesting and surprisingly challenging questions, such as: ‘what would you do if you saw a tribal practice that you deeply disagreed with?’ and ‘how would you feel about taking hallucinogens or having a piercing or tattoo?’

I sat and started to consider what my responses might be. What would I do? How would I feel? These are tough questions with no real right or wrong answers, just opinion and viewpoint accompanied by representations from your own ethical or moral code perhaps. The big question I am really asking myself, though, is would I like to be considered for this challenge? Is now the right time to be doing something like that? Is there ever really a right time? Would I cope? Would this be an example of where my stunted ability at making small talk or lack of reliably being able to integrate easily with strangers proves an insurmountable stumbling block? Could I live happily for a month without the internet or Marlboro reds?

Probably not is the answer to all of the above and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to apply. But perhaps by starting to ponder these questions and issues I may find myself having a life changing experience. Albeit one on a much smaller scale and, like today’s snow, undertaken on this occasion without the need to leave my own home.