Miles To Go Before I Unpack

Dear Anna took me to the Oakland Airport on Wednesday morning. I couldn’t bear to watch her walk away. What a stalwart friend.

Trip to Philadelphia was easy. I took a sleeping pill, slumped my way to our stopover in Phoenix, took another sleeping pill and snored my way — bandanna over face as always — to my destination. An hour later — around 1:30 a.m. — I was at Mom’s house, greeted by aforementioned Mom and by my fuzzy Stella, who was at first confused and then happy to see me. I let her sleep in my bed that night — all three nights, in fact — which I’ve never allowed before. She stretched her long back against my long leg and stayed motionless till morn.

Mom and I did errands for a couple days. She was amazing. She cooked for me. One day she bought me a shiteload of nice clothes at the premier WASP sportswear store. I hate shopping and never buy clothes (I wear stuff from Costco and hand-me-downs from Anna), but it was fun. I’d try something, she’d like it, I’d take it off, she’d hand it to the saleslady and say “We’ll take that, please.” Again and again. She plumbed the depths of her kitchen for Ginna-worthy cookware, and then reluctantly braved the wilds of Bed, Bath & Beyond for the rest. She got my brother-in-law’s car tuned up and added new snow tires.

[Generosity is passed down in this family; my sis offered to lend me her car for the year, and I can’t even get her to let me pay for its insurance.]

Mom’s final act was to hand me an envelope stuffed with money.

No: you may not have my mother. She’s mine and only mine, and it’s only out of Allison thoughtfulness that I share her with my siblings. We had good talks and laughs and my chronic sorrow deepened as I drove away, Mom’s inch-by-inch directions clutched in my paw.

It took about 6.25 hours to get there. It would have taken less for someone who knows how to follow directions. Did you know that Marcus Hook is as ugly as it sounds? Did you know that you can’t pump your own gas in New Jersey? Did you know that my college boyfriend and I wanted to name our imaginary kid “Perth Amboy”? Did you know that there’s a place called Plainville whose main avenue is Crooked Street? And that at least one highway rest area in Vermont has wi-fi?

I swear: this is the hardest voluntary change in my life. I feel wobbly and raw. I thought I was holding my emotions steady as I buzzed up turnpikes toward the unknown. I was patient when I made a wrong turn. (—”How’d I miss that turnoff?” I asked the gas station attendant. —”It doesn’t matter. You’re here. Now drive that way.”) I absorbed lots of scenery, interested in how many New England towns appear only as woods with spires poking out the top. Sort of like Mayan ruins.

Then some old guy glared at me in disapprobation while I was filling the car. I don’t know why he glared. I felt my innards churn. He shook his head angrily at me, so I took the opposite tack, nodding “yes” vigorously, and wearing a murderously brilliant smile.

Here I’d been gluing myself together so well, albeit with old cello tape and spit. That old man dissolved my jury-rigged emotional repair job. So when some young guy passed me on the turnpike soon after (on the right, in the slow lane, I might add) and shook his head angrily at me, I lost it. I infer he didn’t like my driving. Even hundreds of feet down the road this young twerp was still at it, shaking his head to make sure I was adequately shamed, as though I’d peed on his dining room floor. I’m sorry to report that I broke. I screamed. At the top of my lungs. And kept at it till I could barely squeak, punctuating each thought with a two-handed thump to the steering wheel:

#@&* you, you #@&*ing bastard. Who the #@&* do you think you are, you #@&*ing asshole. Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? I wish you could live one second in my life. Then see if you’d go shaking your head at me. How dare you judge me. Try being me for one #@&*ing year, you #@&*. You couldn’t do it. You would die. I wish your penis would fall off. I wish you someone you loved would reject you because you had herpes.

With that final zinger I started to sob uncontrollably, through Rahway and Metuchen, past the New York School of the Dead (at least that’s how I read it), by the jolly little town of Hohokus, around Squantz Pond and across the Tappan Zee bridge. I think I’d settled down by the time I reached the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. It is shaped like a giant basketball — or an even bigger baseball — or an enormous BB.

Here’s a photo taken dangerously at 60 mph from the Tappan Zee, with NYC way off in the distance, in that gap:

The most moving sight, which brought tears to my already soggy eyes, was in a median strip in Massachusetts. It was one of those black, electric road signs with tiny red bulbs that illuminate selectively into letters. This one said, “Thanks, TED. From the people of Mass.” And from me, too.

Anyhow, I got to Brattleboro. When I talked to the guy at the reception desk at the Hampton Inn… well, I couldn’t. My voice was gone. I could only croak, like a once-sexy gravel-voiced movie star who is now dying of throat cancer.

It makes me wonder: if cars hadn’t been invented, would I ever have screamed in my life? I would never, ever do that in front of someone. I wouldn’t scream alone in the wilderness (though I would politely call for help if necessary).

The last thing I wanted to do on arrival was go meet my fellow students at the pub, an event set up on our Facebook group. But I forced myself. I’m glad. With a woman across from me I talked about being scared and homesick, and was surprised to hear she feels the same way. She’s from San Francisco. A woman across from me likes to hike. A woman next to me turned to me suddenly and announced, “I’m so glad you’re here.” —”Oh? Why?” —”Because now I know there’s someone here even older than I am!”

Moreover, half a dozen other people asked, “Are you an SIT teacher? Or … a … student???” I wonder how old they think I am. It’s so strange to be evaluated within a glance on the basis of apparent age. Since I’m looking at the world from inside me, I can’t imagine what they see. And even though I’ve been alive 55 years, I keep thinking, “How did they guess, just by looking at me, that I’m not young?” It’s strange to have a face that communicates information that is misunderstood at best and incorrect at worst. —”Well, you do act young,” my young, new San Francisco friend noted.