Solo Road Trips: Thoughts or Such

As life goes, last summer I found myself looking at the heartland's horizon, and this summer I'll be duplicating and extending some of these travels.  And with that, I have thoughts.  

Yes, I was in the American Midwest, rolling my economical car forward, with iTunes blaring, and some flavored water at my side.  In a poetic manner of speaking, I woke up and found myself on the road.  Though, as we all know, the realities of life don't afford for that.  Instead, I had spent weeks planning, crafting ideas in the wee hours of insomnia on my Pinterest boards, and I had prepped my car.  I had ample data for my GPS, I had a cooler with bottled water and a couple of sandwiches, I had carrot sticks, and I had a somewhat curated playlist.  What that came down to was my asking friends for road trip songs and adding their suggestions to my questionable music library.  I planned to stop and see some old friends, from college and before, but as life goes somethings can never be expected. 

The Open Road

I'm a New Yorker, but before I called this ten-story town home, I resided in eight other states.  Part of those states were Midwestern and those of Dixie.  Thus, my road trip began after leaving my parents in southern Virginia and then heading to Kentucky.  It was as if the universe was looking to rock me from the start, as I headed westbound, rolled into the mountains, and the sky and landscape began to change I could feel my thoughts starting to unfold.  Things I hadn't thought about in years creeped out.  As I kept telling myself—and I had told my friends for months—this road trip would be good for me.  Everyone should make one, long, and protracted road trip in her life.  Solo.  Open road.  Sun-filled skies and endless horizon.  What could be better?

 

Though, as I passed into Kentucky, merging onto the Double-A highway, an hour outside of Maysville (a town I once called home), the sky opened up with rays of color seeping from a romantic dream.  Sighing, I called out "Kentucky, you always did do sunsets so well."

I stopped my car and took pictures.  I stopped my car and got out.  I stood on the side of that highway, camera facing up, memories flooding in, and breathed in long forgotten bluegrass air.  I stopped for the night in Maysville, saw an old friend under the cloak of darkness, and I left the next morning under the blanket of church bells.  Before I shuttled out relatively unseen, I wandered downtown and spent a couple of hours on a blistery hot day-remembering the teenager dreams I had.  I wanted to see the world.  I wanted to write.  I wanted to . . . Gasping, staring at the cobblestone streets I remembered that I never saw myself alone yet I'd never planned a life with someone by my side.  How odd, I thought then and now. 

Lesson one: let the memories creep in and reawaken you. 

Among the Corn

Meandering through Kentucky, a few days in Lexington, and then over to Louisville for lunch with an old friend I followed the windy roads up to Indiana.  Along I-65 North the corn and soybean fields expanded, and in Indianapolis, there was a delay (a quintessentially absurd and typical one for anyone who has ever driven through the area).  I stopped at a roadside stand, picking up a piece of fruit and a bottle of water.  I can't say the peach was succulent and worthy enough to write home about, but the ten minutes of conversation about being a woman, alone, on the open road reminded me that the most significant graces and pleasures of life are usually those that occur without planning and when we take a moment to stop, stare, and let the clock run forgetting about dinner plans.  The windmill farm, on the edge of golden hour yellows, told me meanders and pauses were not only pertinent but of soul filling value. 

As that road trip unfolded, I spent nearly a month in Wisconsin.  While there, I had lunch with a friend from middle school's parents-we met the summer I turned ten-and I went farther north to see that old friend's grave.  During my Indiana residency we had known and loved each other as thirteen-year-olds due, and after twenty-eight years I found myself in the proximity to stand at his grave. After spending the day driving, and remembering, and grieving on Steve's grave that's when the value of it all hit me.  Like a ton of unexpected bricks.  My road trip, of the American heartland, with corn and burgers and endless skies, wasn't really about that at all.  Instead, it was really about my taking that moment-or, in this case, a prolonged one-and remembering the dreams, realities, and heartbreaks of life. 

Don't get me wrong, along the way I've done some great things.  Some fabulous things.  Some fun things.  But, I've also-like most-forgotten about wants, dreams, and hopes as life pushed me in other directions.  Sometimes I forgot the value of being alone, single, and solo.  I can't say that it is always a box of chocolates, but I can say that the value of it all resides in the lessons we've learned.  The breathe of hometown air, the sun's heat melting aches of stress as we stare at a man-made and natural painted sky, the memories of a friend long gone but the juxtaposition of a life still lived, miles away, and years later the two merge to remind you that with every failure there have been as many successes.  These are the moments of life as it carries on. 

Lesson Two: Even the best planning can be enhanced with unexpected memories and detours. 

In the End

After a few weeks on the road, chatting with strangers in shops and boutiques, and eating from roadside stands I finally found myself nearing home again.  I took the long road home, perhaps a metaphor for much of my life.  As I crossed into upstate New York, leaving the Midwest behind, my iTunes seemed to be in tune with my mood.  A John Mellencamp song came on, "The End of the Innocence," and while my youth is mostly faded, I smiled to myself remembering.  Remembering when I started the dreams that make me now and recognizing that with every lesson, success, and failure along the way if I don't stop and challenge myself to keep on looking the journey won't last for very long.  Instead, the past, like those brilliant sunsets of my youth, resonate with me as memories of days and loves long past and as markers for an even brighter and prosperous tomorrow.