I have traveled before. Honestly. Cross country on Amtrak, back east in a little purple rental car, on a moped in Italy and Switzerland, through Canada. I've even held two driver's licenses from different states at one time. At times, I changed addresses more often than I changed the oil in my cars.
But this upcoming trip across the Southwest is making me pant like a neurotic lapdog. Somehow, stuffing a backpack and hopping on bus and waking up not quite sure what city or time zone I was in was child's play compared to this (and perhaps it really was, at 18)
....shoes....
I've got the art supplies nailed down. I have my masonite, birch panel, 5 jumbo tubes of raw umber, 5 brand spanking new sable brushes. All the paintings are tucked cozily into their moving blankets and snugly secured on their foam padding.
...shoes...
Framer Dude Husband has got all his woodworking schtuff snugged away in every possible crevice in the camper. Saws, routers, sanders, workbenches, compressors.. I will have to check the oven before I turn it on to make sure I don't inadvertantly detonate all his stains.
...shoes...
I've got the new tech purring under my control-the Droid 2, the Vortex, the PDA.net, Hulu, all CD's on my Ipod. I've got the route programmed, complete with rest stops, Walmarts, and Cracker Barrels along I-10, into 3 different GPS systems. Got post offices who will accept general delivery in Scottsdale. I will easily pare down my kitchen. I will miss it, for sure, but I could eat chargrilled hamburgers everyday under a starry sky. Like Jimmy Buffett.
However, unlike the Margarita Master, I am returning like a dog to rotten bone to the obsession over what shoes are gonna make the cut for this trip. I open that damn closet and see them all there, mocking me in my paralysis of indecision. They shouldn't even be on the periphery of my consciousness. For chrissakes, I lived a month in flipflops! In Albany! In December! I'm not a clothes chick either; on the days I actually decide to get out of my flannel pants, my good ole Levis are my go-tos.
...shoes...
I think the curse is in the more we can take, the more we get, the more it creates chaos in the mind. Life was simple in the good ole college days, when we were lucky if we remembered to take any money on a road trip and hoped there was enough loose change in the cracks of the seats to buy 2 bucks worth of gas on the Thruway down to the city. Cell phones? Ha! GPS? Triple A road maps!
It's great to be connected, it makes our lives a helluva lot easier, but I am proud of the fact that I developed and possess an internal GPS from those days that could outnavigate Tomtom's "Samantha" blind drunk in a snowstorm. Not that I've ever had to do that or anything.
Not too much about art tonight, but food for thought as many of us seasoned travelers are planning our routes to different regions of this great country for the seasonal migrations: I'm nostalgic for the days when a road trip was an adventure tinged with danger. I truly believe I am of the last generation that went on roadtrips, without having the benefit of Google Earth to show us exactly what was around the next dark bend on a spooky back road in Georgia, or how to get back. Maybe the shoes are a sign that I need to lose some of those safety nets and just go barefoot once more as I diesel up the truck on Monday and shut stupid Samantha off. I should be able to get out of Florida without someone telling me to turn left in 2.4 miles! All I have to do is go west, right? ROADTRIP!!!!
Comments
I enjoy your writing style and humor. I think you are right that kids do not do road trips anymore. They, too, are scheduled, planned, camped and techned out of the lazy summers that once was childhood. Instead of summer Europe back packing trip, they do a semester abroad.
Perhaps take only your comfort shoes and put DSW into your GPS!