The open road can be one of life’s greatest joy, but it can also bring about a sense of disconnection, of not belonging to any particular place, of wanting to be home again, safe in familiar surroundings, knowing that the company of friends or family members is close by.
Watching miles of West Texas brush go by, then fields of corn and cotton, and pastures with cattle and horses, then the more modern scenes of oil rigs or windmills dotting the horizon, I wonder what my life might have been like if I had never left home, or, better said, if I had not had to reinvent the concept of home whenever my father was stationed at a new Air Force Base, or when my singer/songwriter traveling husband swept me up in ever-changing venues, RV parks or motel rooms. What would it have been like to have sunk roots deep in birthplace soil and stayed put, forever bound to the seasonal whims of one landscape?
Every time I have had to pull up roots and move on, my life has changed in some important ways, for always there was something new to learn: new weather patterns, new plants, and animals, new cultural mores, new nuances of the English language, new people and their different customs and habits. Now, at age sixty-five, I realize that I am a composite of all the places I have lived and all the people I have known. I have been marked by storms and passions, comforted by sun-dappled streams and wide-open arms, left bereft by deaths and betrayals, and made joyous by kind words and the blossoming of a rose. I have alternately been irritated, frustrated, disappointed, sickened, and left lonely, only to be then soothed, encouraged, found gratitude and good health, and lovely companionship. And through it all the open road has wound like an ever-increasing spiral of opportunity and enlightenment. There is no way that I could dismiss the lessons learned or discount the chances to embrace the ethereal inherent in everything.
As we are counting down the hours and miles until we will maneuver through our home town’s wide streets to our own beloved driveway, I ponder all the ways in which I have been enriched on this latest venture into the known (food, music, conversations, quiet times reading alone, walking around places where I once lived but then left behind) and the unknown (a man yelling at me, a librarian scolding me for leaving a door open, the anxiety associated with people I had never met). Bittersweet. Sanctioned by acceptance. Striving not to hold on to any lingering inner regrets but instead to turn ever forward, waiting expectantly to see what the next morning will bring for me to pay attention to. The open road with truck wheels rolling as landscapes rush by, or the stillness of home and garden waiting for our return, it all one in the same. Energy. Experience. Infinite ways of finding out more about myself and the World that I am helping to create with my every thought, every emotion, every action.
~LJ