There’s No Menu in Laurencekirk

The clouds arrive, the wind gusts, and now... the rain blows sideways. Drops fly across this loch, climb the shore, and smash straight into the piece of glass I sit in front of. The wind in the Outer Hebrides dominates all equally: a bird flies but rarely needs to flap, a sheep finds comfort in those around, and I hide in a small red cottage. Beside me sits my wife, two lawn chairs, a small table, and two cots. Beyond the door, whose seal is loose enough that I can look through, is a small porch.

The idea of a porch on a cottage sitting in the middle of the North Atlantic is questionable at best. It must only get one or two days of use per year. But those few days, if they look like this morning – deep blue skies speckled with a cloud here or there, an ocean which melts into bright green grass, and livestock that could only be content – no doubt make this porch worth the hassle.

I have been in Scotland with Grace for three weeks now, and between the shrieking gales and pounding rain, I have stumbled upon a familiar state: broke, weather-beaten, and perhaps delusional in thinking that somewhere worthwhile is just beyond a distant horizon.

I was 18 when I first traveled anywhere on my own, but I was 17 when I found the justification to step out of a comfortable, but miserable, life. My dad had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and I had been taken advantage of by someone at my first job. Thus, I had enough justification to accept the offhanded counsel of my oldest sister, who simply advised me to have something to look forward to.

She had just returned from Eastern Europe, and found something worthwhile. That, at that moment, seemed to be just out of my reach. The promise of it, then, was certainly enough for me to commit to $4,500, paid bi-weekly in $200 increments from a job in fast food, for a two week trip to the Alps.

The sun had begun to set – quite magnificently, I note – and we were panicking as our eyes moved faster than our hands could veer across Google Maps. Our desire was simple, but a simple desire often is achieved by a difficult path: my wife and I wanted dinner, but it was 8:07pm. And in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, closing time is 8pm sharp.

We had already rolled down the hill to the fish & chips food truck in the small harbor village of Gourdon, seconds after the clock passed 8. The window was open, the lights were on, and yet still the young girl inside the truck did no more than turn around, peer through the window, and give me a most disappointing nod – and nothing more.

So we checked the pub next door – but last call on food was 7:45pm.

Sitting in our gray rental Skoda, we were at both a loss for words and choice. And, honestly, effort. Aberdeen had options late at night, namely for burgers: Chilos Burgers and Chilli Flame both had recent, decent reviews, but their listing in the category of Fast Food pulled me away from the northbound highway, while Five Guys offered familiarity – but only if Grace and I could wait 47 minutes, plus the average Five Guys wait of infinity, for dinner.

It was just then, in a stroke of genius, that Grace remembered an extensive conversation we had in the local pub, Redhall Arms, with the owner, Nick. Our ranging talk covered future and past, food and drink, but in a breezy conversation which I, at the time, let slip right past, Nick replied, when I asked if Redhall Arms served any food, with:

No, we don't – sorry mate. But 15 minutes down the road is a French restaurant, and that's the place to be. But just know, there's no menu...

Grace's recall and taste was, and often is, superior to mine. A restaurant with no menu does not sound like much of a restaurant to me at all. But in my now dilapidated state – with our car hanging half off a rural Scottish road, on a blind corner – an opinion was certainly one thing I had no right to.

Thus, Grace took my phone began her search.

These recent days on the road are unlike any I have experienced before. Most previous days, I have longed for an adventure. And now I am on one, with my wife. But simultaneously, I desire control. For someone who has often been stranded, stuck, and struggled to find a place to sleep, you would think that I would know that adventure and control are, at best, antonyms: they can not co-exist.

Typically, when I travel, I have an idea of what I'd like to see: for instance, last summer, I drove north. Why? To find the Arctic Ocean. Or years ago, when I was 19, I drove west. Why? To see how far I could go. But now, here, next to a loch which is covered in whitecaps, as clouds march from west to east with walls of water, which will, in some hours, hit the mainland, I have started to question why.

Why did we come to the Outer Hebrides? What brings me to drag my wife here? The closest shower is 200 yards away, requires a new £1 coin payment every 10 minutes, and is only available if you somehow were able to walk it in this wind.

There is something about these islands, so far removed from the rest of the world, with their miles of one lane roads and rolling bogs, that draws me in. It can't be comfort; the edge of the known world rarely comforts. It can't be the remoteness; I have been further afield. And it is certainly not the pleasantries; the wind has just gust and now, this red cottage quivers.

There's a lot that can go wrong when you step into an adventure. Normally, things are easy to sort. And the further you get, the less significant problems seem to be. But when I was onboard that first flight, at 18, headed to Europe on my own ... there was seemingly nothing that could go worse. A freak storm popped up over my connecting flights destination, Newark, NJ. Our diversion ran wide, and we ran low on fuel. We came down somewhere well south of where we were supposed to, and the airline was having an awfully hard time figuring out how to get a hundred or so people – most important being me, of course – on our way.

But that was peanuts to what I would find when I landed in Geneva: that little diversion had sent my luggage somewhere. And for a young man, leaving home for the first time, there is probably nothing more terrifying than landing in a country that speaks four languages, none of which are yours, with no cell service, no luggage, and a debit card that doesn't work.

Back on the blind corner, with the occasional car veering around us, Grace had found the restaurant Nick had shared with us. Le Bouchon, as it were, needed no menu. Because it wasn't really a restaurant. It was an experience. Emmanuel, the mid 50s French chef who owned and ran and cooked everything in the joint, came to our table. And he had two questions, which seemingly had nothing to do with food: why are you here? and where are you from?

The former of which stopped me in my tracks... why was I there? In that situation, do you tell the chef that you are in his restaurant because Five Guys was too far away? Or because you missed the fish and chips truck by a few minutes? No, you must be wise.

The correct answer, in my experience, is: Uhhh, we're looking for dinner.

That was all the confirmation Emmanuel needed. Because despite the fact that it was an hour until close and he had sold out of the evening's courses, and the restaurant was nearly empty except for a table of 6 Scottish grandparents sharing 4 bottles of wine, Emmanuel finished his slightly French interrogation with not a third question, but a friendly gesture over to one of many empty tables, and a quick, hopeful remark:

I make something special for you.

The something special would be the greatest meal my wife and I have had in recent memory: two plates of flammekueche, made with what leftover dough he had, covered with honey and feta and pepperoni and olives and so much more, and two chocolate mousses – the recipe for which Emmanuel took from the man who invented the chocolate mousse in Paris. And not to show us anything less than love, Emmanuel gifted us one eclair – also the original recipe from the man who invented the eclair.

Evening has come upon us, and the little light there is, goes further dim. The beauty here, in the Outer Hebrides, is found in the very thing which makes it a difficult place. The wind will gust, and the rain will not so much fall as fly, and the sun may come out (though it likely won't).

Yet stuck in our small cottage, my wife and I are forced to reckon with something greater than ourselves. We are forced to exist in a world that is uncertain, and has no clear future. Perhaps, in the morning, the skies will part and the birds will fly and the dolphins will jump. That would be lovely, wouldn't it?

But perhaps they won't.

The Outer Hebrides are beautiful not because of what they can show or give me, but rather because of what they require from me: surrender. And this far out there, anything less than surrender might as well put you on the next ferry to the mainland.

Likewise with the Alps: my luggage was three days late. I eventually found the group I was traveling with purely by a miracle, as I had to hop between random bus lines in Lausanne after catching a train from Geneva with a ticket an older lady translated for me. And then, I did my first ever real hike in boat shoes. It's hard to imagine anything worse. But that trip, as rough as those days were, set the course for my life. It was responsible for me buying a camera, writing a sentence, and looking outside with wonder and curiosity. Worrying had done me no good. All that was required of me then, was surrender.

And only after I had entirely ceased to try and find a place for dinner, did the place for dinner find me. I didn't even know what French food was. I actually thought I would probably dislike it. There was an evening in my life – a specific moment, even, where my teeth bit through my first eclair – that I will never forget. But it was experienced only because we were late to get fish and chips, and I eventually stepped out of the way.

The plane that ran out of fuel, the dinner that we missed, the time on these islands that seems to wear me thin. The promise given to me, and I bet to you, has never been of a life under our control, but instead a life of adventure.

What a blessing it is, then, to wake up tomorrow, with the rest of the Outer Hebrides ahead – even if it means stepping out into the pouring rain.