Day 67: Paspébiac to Carleton-sur-Mer

This blog post is somewhat of a rant as I wait for the people to disappear from the beach in Carleton-sur-Mer so I can stealth camp. I don’t know how long people will be here or will they care if I set up my tent on the beach, but I’ve been looking up at the sky for too long and thinking about life.

Today, I rode 54.8 miles to this beach, which is right by the Camping de Carleton-sur-Mer campground. I decided to not pay for a campsite and try stealth camping since I’ve been spending too much money on housing lately. Though I did pay CA$1 for a shower at the campground.

As I rode my bicycle for the past few days I’ve been ruminating about imaginary conversations, mostly between me and my mom, some about Pat the Trumper, and maybe a few others. I guess I’m trying to work some things out in my head and being my own therapist.

For some reason, I kept thinking about my mom and how it infuriates me every time I think about her. In my life, she never had anything profound to say to me. No life changing advice. No life advice in general. But she said a lot of negative things to me.

I remember one day she walked into my room and told me that I’m the most boring person she knows, then left. It was all she said. I still don’t understand why she said that.

I also remember one time when we were taking a walk in the neighborhood and she told me that my photography sucks, at the time when I was trying to become a fine art photographer. What a great motivator she was.

The worst was around Thanksgiving one year and she told me I’m not her son after I had returned some mismatched bed sheets to her and she wanted to throw them out because they were not a set. A couple of years later when I confronted her about that incident, expecting an apology. She told me she didn’t remember saying it. No wonder I haven’t been to any of the Thanksgivings after that.

I also remember the huge fight we had when I quit my job in March of 2023. She told me I was not “xiao shun,” which is a Chinese word for filial piety. All because I had decided to quit a job that was giving me a lot of stress and wanted to travel the world.

Talk about traveling. When I first traveled around the US for 45 days in the summer of 2003, my mom and my grandma were not happy about me leaving. When I went anyway and came back in one piece, my mom said in a disparaging way that I only scratched the surface of the places I went to, like what I did was nothing special.

My mom, along with my grandma, failed to see that what I want to do in life is to travel the world. Every time I mentioned traveling, they think I should be more serious. They never see the education in traveling. Perhaps they mistaken traveling for vacationing.

So as I watched the clouds in the sky above me, I thought about why was I even born. I was never asked to be born, let alone to be born to a toxic mother. I bet nobody was asked to be born in a conscious way. As far as I can see, it just happened that I was born in China, in the mid-1980s, to a set of parents whom I had no choice in choosing.

But I was lucky that I was raised by my grandma, who was the most benevolent person I had ever met. And by my step-grandpa, who was not related to me by blood, but was a wonderful grandpa. I still remember the time when he sat beside the bed the whole night when I was sick with a fever as a young child. It pains me to say it, but I’ll say it anyway. I got lucky that I wasn’t raised by my biological parents. Again, I had no choice in choosing in regard to my upbringing.

The clouds change with the wind and so are my thoughts.

I thought about Trump and the Americans who support him. I thought about Pat the Trumper, whom I had lunch with in Bethlehem, PA, earlier in my trip. He had told me about his Latino friend who always smiled like the Buddha. I wonder what would Pat think if his friend got deported by ICE.

When I told Pat about global warming, he told me weather changes all the time. As if the weather is the same as the climate.

I wondered why Pat, who has worked all this adult life for one company, is in a union, already saved $1.6 million for retirement, can’t find a wife, and wants to go to Thailand to have sex with Thai women. When I told him don’t be that creepy white guy, his response was “it’s not creepy if you have money.”

I wondered what made Pat vote for Trump three times over, and will he vote for him again if Trump runs for a third term.

I should really stop wondering, to be honest.

So yeah, these are some of my thoughts as I bicycled. They ruminated like they wanted to be written down so I can be alleviated.

One last thing. I remembered looking out into the sky and into the universe, thinking that if I died I would be very happy. Because what I’ve done so far in my life has been more than what most people have done in a lifetime. Maybe I should look into the sky a bit more sometimes.

The sun has just set and there are still people on the beach. It takes me about 30 minutes to set up my tent. Maybe I should get moving.

Addendum:

I just want to add a few things about the road condition in case any future cyclists go through the area. Going through downtown Paspébiac, there are a lot of potholes on the shoulder of the road. I had to be extra careful during the morning rush hour traffic due to the large number of trucks.

I also had lunch at Le Panier à frites in New Richmond where I chatted with a couple of people. One of them was a woman named Melanie who works at the nearby railroad. Upon hearing me talking about my trip to another couple, Melanie requested my contact card from me. I hope she finds my journey interesting.

Love riding by the water