“When Life hands you lemons, you look down at the lemons in your hands, and say, 'What am I supposed to do with these lemons?' And while you're distracted, Life kicks you in the nards.”

Preamble.

The wheels fell off a month ago. I was headed for another divorce. I'd lost my job. The apartment I had lined up fell through. I saw Forty sprinting toward me, and it felt like staring into the barrel of a gun. The Universe was mugging my ass, and my pockets were empty.

Not quite. I had a little money. I had my old Forester. It was Fight or Flight time.

A plan started to coalesce: a rambling, month-long roadtrip, Alaska by way of Ohio, Utah, Arizona. Anywhere I knew people who might want to see me. Take pictures. Write. Try to get my shit together. I put everything I owned into a storage unit, turned in my keys, and left.

*

Declaration of Principles.

  1. See past your own bullshit. I'm in my head too much. Always looking for pattern and metaphor and missing what's really there. Sometimes a cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee.

  2. Keep an open mind. First impression, schmirst impression. Listen, observe, withhold judgment until you actually understand.

  3. Be flexible. Weather, road conditions and other people operate outside of your control. Surrender to it. Enjoy the ride. Follow your whims.

  4. Tell the truth. About yourself, especially. Don't self-aggrandize, gloss over your mistakes, or puff yourself up. Stay humble, like the cowardly, indecisive, impatient jerk that you are.

With that out of the way...Let's Roll!

Day 00: Vermont

What with one thing and another, I didn't manage to leave until noon. It was a beautiful spring day: deep blue sky, fat white clouds. Temperature in the 60s. Brian Eno's “An Ending (Ascent)” on Spotify. I thought a little about beginnings, and endings, and our inability to tell the difference. Mostly I just drove, and sang along as the music changed – Fleetwood Mac, Richard Shindell, Jo Dee Messina. The romance of the road.

I got to Burlington a bit before 2 PM. Downtown was a labyrinth of torn-up streets and construction signs. Eventually I reached my first stop, an apartment in the Old North End. Six hundred plants, two cats, piles of old National Geographics. The occupant has had a tough go of it, these last few years especially. But she seems to be doing better, in spite of ongoing challenges. “Plants make me happy,” she said more than once, and I was happy for her.

On to Essex Junction, where my oldest friend lives with one of my newer friends. Dinner was appetizers and drinks at The Boardroom in Winooski, a cafe that boasts a library of 700+ games you can play while you eat. Afterward, we got drinks at the bar near their house. As it often seems to when you put three middle-aged introverts around a table after dark, the conversation turned to politics, and death, and generational trauma. The frightening uncertainty of the present moment, the passage of time, circles and arcs and the possibilities of change. We spoke with an ease and a vulnerability that's only possible when you've known and loved each other since long before you could know or love yourselves.

I guess there's truth in that old ironic aphorism: the more things change, the more they stay the same. I like to think I've grown, not just older, but wiser and kinder. I believe in the possibility, the power even, of transformation. Many things do change, incrementally, usually while we're too distracted to notice them.

Others don't. Love, for one. The dopamine rush when that first cup of coffee slams into your brain, for another. I'm getting restless, and talking nonsense. And it's nearly 11am. Well past time for me to be on the road. Bye for now. 

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