Last night I must have been exhausted. I had to pull off the road in Redding and sleep for a few minutes, then drove on down the road to Corning, then had a mediocre Mexican meal. I vaguely remember returning to the motel and falling into bed. Next thing I knew it was twelve hours later! I suppose all that dancing of the night before tired me out.
Once your compass is set toward home, the trip has a different tone: you start gathering together all the people and things of home: Did my grass ever get mowed? Will I make it in time for my Thursday writing group? Is everyone at home okay? Will Elena remember me?
On the trip out, it's easy to see each day as a new adventure; on the way back you know you're coming to the end and you have to consciously decide to keep the adventure in the moments you have left.
Even when you travel the same road in the reverse direction, you see totally different things going in the new direction.
I'm constantly reminded of how like life a trip is: the morning of each new day carrying all the newness of life that I get to see watching Elena; the evening light mellowing everything in a fading light, just as beautiful in its own way as morning.. John O'Donahue says that the light of sunset is the light of imagination and reverie as it returns to all the places it's touched during the day, never lighting the same places exactly the same way as it did on any other day.
This trip has been glorious! I am hereby recommending that everyone take a trip--maybe not like my trip, but following whatever road is calling to you. This journey has given me time to indulge every quirky desire, to just play in the playground of my own mind for a while.
I've been on the road for nearly a month!
No two days are the same. The mind has to be at peak performance--as you have to be vigilant: attending both to the road and the possibilities off-road. Traveling alone, you can't turn the wheel over to someone else for a patch of rest.
Turning a new age, any other age, always makes us reflect on the chapters of our lives. To take the time to do that on the road takes away the usual frames that home has built in. This month of solitude has been a time of harvesting: gathering the fruits of my life in one red wheelbarrow.
The challenge is always the same: How to keep the spirit of travel alive when you arrive home to messy grass and dust bunnies and doctors' appointments and bills you've probably forgotten to pay online. Where to put the wheelbarrow.
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