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Now that we were on the road for several days, it seemed as though I hadn't really lived any other way but here, sleeping in rest areas and truck stops, not really having any real goal other than the next destination and watching the miles tick away on the odometer. Or, doing it symbolically by watching the varying landscape go by, either whizzing like so many frames of a slide show per second as a passenger, or peripherally as I watched it in the horizontal edges of my view as I kept my eyes on the vehicles riding up on my left side or coming up from behind me. It was a hypnotic effect, a strange meditation where I was not really at home but yet everything felt familiar to me. That was the strange thing about traveling to me. Once any trip went into its final planning stages, there was a part of me that wondered what the hell was I doing, leaving the routine I had and the comforts of home. Minutiae that had become stifling to me almost took on a sense of nostalgia, like leaving the grocery store I usually shopped at for the last time. More pleasant chores like dropping books off at the library without refilling my stock, after all, I wouldn't be around to read the new stuff, seemed to stand out more prominently than they normally would. There would be some who would call the previous state taking things for granted, and this farewell state I left my home in would more a state of grace. But taking things for granted or not, the state of grace was not usually an efficient way to get things done in a busy world. One normally didn't say goodbye to his, or in my case, her world on a regular basis, even though the state of grace would dictate that one never knew when the end would be. That just wasn't the way things were in the real world. Contemplating endings on a constant basis, if said publicly, would probably indicate signs of clinical depression to those who couldn't be bothered with anything but the bottom line. In the state of grace while leaving, there was more excuse to relish the endings that deep inside could be as real as the sun setting upon the day that stretched itself along the fabric of time. Now, it was only the sun's preparation for its own bedtime upon our land that made me think of my own. We pulled aside, low on food and supplies, going to restock the fridge that we had once the supplies were low. Mostly, we had relied on buying tons of food from some fast food place in the morning and stowing them away. We were in the parking lot of a truck stop somewhere in Arkansas, and in the dusk I didn't know exactly where. We were still along the I-40 corridor somewhere, intending to make our way towards Hot Springs and the baths that resided there. But there was no rush, there was no plan. Eating cold fast food from Hardee's may not sound like the best fantasy, but in reality, as I sat in a parking lot with the hum of diesel engines around me, it was outstanding. Yes, reality could surpass fantasy. It was like one of those sayings that claimed it was too strange for someone to make up. What made it such a pleasure was the fact that everything was on a different latitude. Literally so, though not entirely the cause of the warm hum that sang in me. But this whole way of being here on the road, of allowing myself to improvise as I went along instead of doing things this way or the other way because it always had been that way or it was efficient or that was what a consortium agreed to do at some board meeting. My time here was my own, and by reclaiming it, I seemed to notice it existed in something other than a day planner. Today my gourmet meal consisted of a Frisco sandwich and the tater tots that came along as a side dish. I had gotten them somewhere along the I-40 corridor, where exactly, I didn't know. Writing this, I am aware that this malaise would cause some people to point me out as an example and say, see, this is what happens when the interstates come along and obliterate the charm of small towns. She can't tell the difference between Toledo and Tulsa. Everything has turned into a blend of the same. I get their sentiment, and from their point of view it certainly has validity. But in my defense, I have to say, I was enjoying the hell out of my Frisco sandwich from God knows where and sitting in wherever God went. I liked this obliviousness and relished the fact that open spaces were anywhere I could find myself an anonymous place where schedules and responsibilities were something that belonged in some time warp somewhere else. I was getting full, and my dog MacGyver was sick of his dog food. He got the leftovers, some ham and sourdough bread bits, as well as a couple of tater tots. Soon I would take him for a walk in the island along the lit truck stop. I wasn't too worried for my safety, walking him in an area not far from where my husband was and in a place where there was safety in numbers. Trips always started out as a fear of the unknown for me, wondering what would happen and what would I encounter, fears that if I listened to and didn't transform into wonder at discovery would keep me at home. Walking in a place over a thousand miles from home in a place turning to dusk, I felt a contentment that I hadn't had for a long time. It was like in stepping away from my desk I could see better, as though the desk had given me nearsightedness and tunnel vision. My view here, looking over the darkening landscape, felt more expansive to me than when the lights were on at home. It was like life opening up to me, all in a wide angle point of view |
