Day Eight

The sun isn't even up yet, so who knows what Eight will bring?

I'm heading out to look for some beach to walk on!

We had an adorable waiter at the Italian restaurant last night--and some delicious lobster bisque.

Golf, our waiter, asked us how long it had taken us to get here and Betty said, "We started out walking when we were fifteen and we just arrived!  The hike really aged us!"

Day Seven

Betty and I left Lorraine's this morning, stopped in Mystic for scallops and crab cakes, then arrived here in Falmouth on the Cape just before dark.

It's going to take a day or two to rest and switch gears, but we're all set for a wonderful Cape Cod and New England adventure!

Day 5

Interstates and turnpikes are terribly boring ways to travel, but we had to resort to flat and fast yesterday in order to get through Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York to arrive here at Lorraine's in Connecticut in half the time it would have taken us to drive back roads.  As much as I abhor fast and flat in general, I'm also grateful for the engineering and technology that make it possible to travel with ease, guided by our lady on GPS, and arriving for time to enjoy shrimp and grits and talk for hours before, during and after.

I love introducing two people I love to each other and they pick right up where they never left off as if they've been friends forever!  That's how it's been here with Lorraine and Betty.

This septuagenarian journey has icing all over the cake of freedom!

Days 3 and 4

Betty and I spent Friday night in Manassas, not far from the Learys, but knowing we'd have to drive after dark to make it, we decided to wait for Saturday morning to arrive.

On Friday, we particularly enjoyed our lunch in Lexington, and browsing around in a couple of galleries downtown.  We discovered beautiful floor cloths painted on canvas, but in intricate patterns. This fired us up to make our own.  By the end of the day, we were tired and happy and had dinner in our room.

Yesterday was another wonderful early birthday celebration on the Leary porch--Jackson's 17th, Day's 47th, and my 70th.

Day had made beautiful table runners, one for me, one for Betty.  Here we are, Betty wrapped in hers like a shawl, me spreading mine out more for the camera.

I gave Day her tray ...

Marcus gave us a mini-concert on his saxophone....

When Day told us some hilarious stories on the porch, Marcus cuddled up for story time with his mama, coaching her on what details to enact:

Jackson came in from a car show and the six of us spent the entire day together, talking and laughing and going out for dinner:

Marcus showed Betty the script of the one-act play he's going to be in in November and she offered to run lines with him.  It's been a terrific birthday visit and we're packing this morning to head to Stamford to visit Lorraine.....

Jackson opening his birthday present

Shrill

Shrillness fills the airwaves lately--and you can hear it in breakfast lobbies and in clusters of people outside the Comfort Inn.

Last night I listened to a woman holding forth to a bunch of men so loudly you could hear her all the way down the parking lot.  "Those damn Democrats ask for an investigation and they are never satisfied! I don't care if Kavenaugh did it or not, he's President Trump's pick and he's our president and we should all get on board with him.  That woman was a *$%#&  liar!"

Then I turned on the radio this morning to where NPR can usually be found on my dial, and I heard similarly strident and shrill voices from the religious right, minus the constant cursing of the bleached blonde in the Comfort Inn parking lot. 

We have never lived in a more divided country and feelings are high on both sides, but the shrillness factor on radio and TV is enough to make you think that's the entire mind of the world.

I'm ready today for a meandering drive through the countryside of Highway 11, dipping into the Blue Ridge Parkway for the air of silent trees,

I read this last night in Joyful: 

"In Japan, an activity called shinrin-yoku--literally, forest bathing--has been promoted by the forest ministry since 1982.  The practice, which involves simply relaxing in the presence of trees...has been shown in several studies to increase the activity of natural killer (NK) cells, a type of white blood cell critical to immune system functioning particularly in the body's defense against cancerous and virally infected cells."

Let the talking heads spout their opinions and blast their shrill anger all day long, but it makes me want to take a bath in trees!

Septuagenarian Adventure Day Two

Southern Virginia in October is beautiful!  Rolling green hills; barns, crops, and farmland, winding slow roads--I could travel these roads for days, or maybe rent a little house in one of these hills for a month or two.

We spent the afternoon in Galax and Floyd, Virginia, two special little towns on the Crooked Music Trail.  The pace is slow, the people friendly.  We talked with strangers-- about arts, crafts, politics, dulcimers, and barbecue sauces.

We connected with women who share our political outrage and frustration. "The old hippies and young people are liberal, but the old timers around here are not," one told me.  "Women have got to band together and stop all this men-telling-us-what-we-can-do-with our own bodies," another said.

Abby, Lindsey, Bernadette, Jess, Michelle, Abby, Judy, Lyn--it's amazing how much people open up about themselves in short chance meetings on streets, at cafe tables, and rooms filled with local crafts and homemade pies and bluegrass music.


One, a young woman with Down's syndrome, is a hostess at the Galax Visitor's Center;  two manage art galleries; one works at a barbecue cafe in Galax and took the time to give us a most lively impromptu guide to this stretch of Blue Ridge.

Now that her children are grown up, one is working on her Masters degree and plans to fulfill her delayed dream of  teaching English--though she also takes care of her 91-year-old mother with Alzheimers.  Her mother's mood, she says, is way better "when she's making something instead of just doing puzzles."  I asked her to show us the quilt they are working on together.

"This is something she can still do," Lyn said.  "I cut the squares of linen and she embroiders the circles, then I sew them all together."

"You are a great daughter!" Betty said as we admired the circles of thread on linen.

"Oh, but she did everything for me!" Lyn said.

Jess,  our waitress at a Roanoke Diner, and Betty struck up a conversation about grandmothers raising granddaughters--a subject both know from different sides.

Traveling, you take the time to follow up on hunches, and Betty recognized a shared thread in Jess' story even before she heard it.

"I didn't get along with my mama," Jess said.  "She's actually kind of a mess.  But my grandma raised me."

"Well, after meeting you, I can tell your grandmother did a good job!" Betty said--and we left with tears in all our eyes,  Betty hugging someone else's granddaughter.

"Y'all come back, please!" Jess  said.  "I want to see y'all again!"



                                       These are a few of the memorable faces of our Thursday

Lindsey at the Galax Visitor's Center

Abby--soon to take ownership of my favorite gallery in Floyd

Septuagenarian Adventure, Day One

Betty and I left Carlene's this morning and drove to one of our favorite towns--Clarksville, Georgia--for the unbeatable guacamole at Fresco's and a little poking around downtown.

The weather is warm and beautiful, but we've seen hardly any fall colors yet--though we're hopefully proceeding, scanning the horizon and every hill for a sign of brilliant yellow or orange or red.

Dinner tonight at Risto's Farm-To-Market in Statesville, North Carolina....

Seeing Beverly in Luling last Wednesday was such a highlight of this Turning-Seventy Trip! Too much time had passed since we'd seen each other--and it was so good to visit with her in City Market for three hours catching up!

She and Larry helped build a really cool Blue Wave float for the Democratic Party's float in the Halletsville parade last week.  As always, we talked about books and life and all the things that interest us both--and laughed about shared memories.

Beverly gave me an amazing gift--a scrapbook she had made for my 70th while healing from a broken wrist!  She is, as always, the queen of celebrations and gifts.  We celebrated her 70th with a retreat, and this book is its own kind of retreat--filled with pictures and quotations and inspirations.

I'm reading a little each day, saving the final pages to be read on October 14th in New England.  I'll be posting other readings along the road.

Here is this morning's reading:

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn..."is to learn something.  That is the only thing that never fails.  You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins...you may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics, o know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds.  There is only one thing for it then--to learn.  Learn why the world wags and what wags it.  That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, and never dream of regretting.  Learning is the thing for you."

T.H. White

Improvised Life October 1

https://www.improvisedlife.com/2018/10/01/annals-life-lessons-things-come-together-fall-apart-come-together/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+improvisedlife+%28Improvised+Life%29

The journey begins

If a traveler hasn't taken a journey in a while, the first few days are reminders about technique and take-alongs.  Here were mine:

1. Avoid news while traveling. The severity and anger of current news cycles can rob the traveler of clear eyes for seeing clouds and fences and surprises that show up on the road.

2. Avoid major highways as much as you can.  Set your GPS to "avoid highways."

3. Simplify, simplify--as Thoreau said.  Consolidate everything into two bags, leaving camera and atlas as close to the driver's seat as possible, un-bagged.

4. Detach from anything that's been worrying you or nagging at your mind.  Make space for a fresh canvas.

Day Two of my 1200-or-so-mile-drive from San Antonio to Lawrenceville, was Reminder Day.  I let myself be pulled into the hearings and testimonies--so that the present moments of road time dimmed.  The intrusion of news into an otherwise magical day was my mistake.

I did stop for lunch in Natchitoches, Louisiana, on the Cane River, and walked a few blocks on its brick streets.  But the day was essentially spoiled by the sound of politics.

It's on days like this that a traveler--this one--is apt to go for the main roads and "get there"--which means that the real journey is already over and flattened out into one long stretch of road, every stop looking like every other stop.  When the eyes and ears and mind are filled up with the same old arguments,  it can't take in roadside surprises.

So after a Twilight Zone of a night in Vicksburg in a cheesy motel, after a stretch of boring Interstate between Vicksburg and Jackson, I came to my senses and meandered Mississippi backroads and entered the magical underworld of the Natchez Trace Parkway, radio off, music playing, singing along.

Twenty miles into the Trace, I discovered French Camp, a town in Choctow County, Mississippi, home to the historical  French Camp Academy (established in the late 1800s)  and their Council House--a quaint cafe where the students serve sandwiches made with bread and spreads they've made themselves.  This boarding school serves mostly kids in trouble, abandoned, or otherwise in need of special care.

My hundred miles of Trace ended in Tupelo where I visited Tupelo Hardware  (where Elvis and his mama bought his first guitar), talked with a few Tupelo people, took some pictures,  and bought a pair of lamps for my living room.

By nightfall, near Birmingham where I spent Night Three, I had recaptured my happy full force.

I'll remember this trip for its roadside beauty, Leonard Cohen soundtrack for driving, unexpected conversations that swooshed in more joy, and a free coke from a woman who--when I protested and said I had cash in the car--said, "Don't steal my blessing!"

I'll remember Highway 411 from Birmingham driving into Georgia as Willie was singing "Georgia on My Mind," a blue blue sky and mild temperatures,  and the sound of Isaac Freeman singing "Beautiful Stars," so pretty I kept pressing Re-play.

On a journey, I can always hear the internal click when words of opinions and beliefs go silent and mystery opens my mind and heart to the real adventure of any road. This is where I want to live, in this kind of mind space, wherever I am.