The End of a Road

The trip is concluded.  I’m back and have to figure out how I want to proceed, live this new phase of my life.

The journey was beautiful, meaningful and full.  It went by in the blink of an eye, the insidious corn fields rushing by.  Reality upon return hit hard with

family and personal health scares, forcing me back into the slow lane and even off the road altogether while diagnostics are done to see if we can all get back on the road, proceed as we should.  It’s an interminable waiting game.  I’m being lapped by others moving on, passing me by and all I can do right now is wait it out.  Again.

I saw the country under construction.  Still, always, forever.  It is somehow validating. 

I’m not the only one with work still to do, maintenance still required.  It became part of the trip, tolerated.  You slowed down, got a better look around, learned how to merge, cooperate with others; practiced patience and acceptance.  I hope that those lessons will continue to help me now.

Destinations were achieved.  At the end of the day we always found refuge, savoring the rest, the newness of the place.  Some destinations were disappointing, some

unexpectedly awe-inspiring – magic.  We each had an episode of running into our own blind spots, almost running into an oncoming car.  We take our blind spots with us.  But we weren’t supposed to be looking back anymore – only ahead. 

We left from where we began; an immersion into the past to launch us into the future, from the very people present at his birth.  It was a wonderful feel of

completeness.  So many things had changed; so many things hadn’t.  We

found it fairly symbolic that we had a very difficult time getting out of the city.  We couldn’t find gas easily; no stations just off the freeway no place to find a quick lunch to go.

Santa Fe was inexplicably disappointing.  I was really looking forward to that excursion as I’d never been and it sounded so romantic, all art in the desert.   It was completely monotone and we couldn’t even park.  It was nice, but at the end of the day just a crowded tourist art town with a budget and good marketing.  Not that impressed.  Maybe I expected too much.

It was around the time we reached Colorado that my heart or something began

acting up.  Maybe it was the altitude or skipping my evening medication the first night on the road.  My doctor thought it was a pulmonary embolism from traveling; a not uncommon event.  But the CT scan came back negative, so back to the mystery that is my heart, and waiting, waiting for tests and results.

Colorado Springs was fabulous; the Rockies, Pike’s Peak.  We landed in The Garden of the Gods.  A mini Sedona Arizona you’re allowed to actually climb around in, climb the rocks,

scramble around to your heart’s content.  In Sedona, if you even want to pull over on the side of the road, you can only do so in designated areas, and to do so will cost you money.  There is no ability to meaningfully interact there.  In The Garden of the Gods, it didn’t cost a dime and you get to be a part of it.  You can climb and go wherever you want. 

There were many people scaling the deep red monoliths.  It was awesome.

The dull pain of Nebraska came next.  Unremitting corn, of course, and absolutely no modulation to the landscape whatsoever.

And then the toll roads hit.  Your journey comes at a price in the East.  Once

you enter New York, the common method of passing is to run right up on the bumper of the car in front of you, even if it is passing somebody too, or even if they’re in the right hand lane.  Literally – as soon as we hit the New York border it began.  There was no rancor, no rage like in Los Angeles, just very matter of fact.  That’s how they do.

Niagara Falls was where we chose to rest for a couple days, actually unpack and stand still a moment.  Here you can get right up close and personal.  In

California, it would be behind a glass wall, movie reels and surround sound to duplicate the experience in front of you.  But there, you could walk right up to the falls.  You could take the elevator down to the base of the falls, walk out

onto platforms built there, and scramble around, actually in the falls, the water rushing over you, hitting you while you hold on and screech.  You’re in it.  It was exciting, amazing.  We took water sloshed pictures of each other, grinning like the happy tourists we were in our park raincoats.

The unfortunate climax of our trip was driving in Boston.  It is impossible. 

There are few street signs, exits that don’t exist, directions that take you through people’s backyards; a secret maze that even Google maps can’t penetrate.  It tries valiantly and comes up with confounding information thrown back out, a different guess every time you try.  The city seemed designed to keep out strangers, like it evolved throughout its prodigious history back in upon itself.

The anxiety of driving there, being lost, was of course a perfect physical manifestation of the anxiety we both felt.  The feat of what we were really doing now

unavoidable.  He was staying in that foreign land; I was leaving him.  He would

walk through the door and live with strangers.  I would move on alone, abandoning him there. 

The pain of watching him walk away alone, utterly alone, was wrenching.  And then I had to pull away alone as well; a physical tearing apart between us.  I felt the same baffling emotion as when he started kindergarten and first grade – the tears were

primal, unexpected.  Ephemeral joy and sadness entwined my heart.

I’m still in a state of shock, adjusting.  I’m unable to fully move forward quite yet.  I’m still waiting.  A condition I suspect I’ll have to find a way to get used to in my new life.