Catching up with the present

I meant to begin this recording of experiences before now…but due to low energy levels and persistent experiences, I’ve been delayed. I hope I can reconstruct my initial experiences, thoughts and perspectives. But first, a little background. All good stories always have a context, events leading up to the present tense, history and necessary information.

Damn the landlord and all people adhering to rules with irrational vigor. His refusal to allow subletting, and subsequent writing me into a lease addendum, led me to box up my accumulated history and store it in an unidentifiable orange doored storage shed. Stacking box upon box of clothes, essential books, items representing memories, left me feeling vacant, detached and eerily free. There is a glamorous appeal of being a gypsy, with no permanent address & giving perplexed looks to people asking for a forwarding address, but it is quickly overshadowed with an underlying current of apprehension. For the first time in my life, I now say "I’ll figure that out in September" when people ask me about what I’ll do after this east coast adventure. Fortunately I have gracious friends offering several couches, spare rooms and floors to crash once I return. With resignation, I accept this new lesson in “living in the moment” and “trusting in my abilities”. On an ordinary Thursday at the end of May, I wrapped a plastic tarp barrier around all items close to the electric orange garage door, gave a hard tug on the worn rope and listened to the rattle of the metal wheels in the thin rails separate me from the items I’ve come to associate as expressions of my self. With a heavy master lock I sealed my current self away from the burdens of my past self, climbed into my dinky blue Hyundai hatchback and head out to meet friends for one last taste of Madison.

Because leaving home is a bit traumatic, I delayed heading for the east coast for a few days. I stayed a couple of days in my boyfriends quintessential bachelor pad, pondering whether to collect the mounds of animal hair to send to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and how best to shower in what clearly is a laboratory for growing cancer cures. With friends, I basked in the alcoholic haze of good Ale Asylum beer, attempting to quiet the anxiety of the future participation in the chaos of America’s largest city and enjoy the last few days of Midwestern life. On the banks of the mighty Mendota, we watched sailors play with the wind and chatted idley about life, the universe and everything. On Saturday, May 22^nd, I left the comfort and security of the known and took a baby step towards the east coast, stopping in Rockford, IL.

Depositing my rather unhappy cat at my mom's, I enjoyed a day of child labor in Rockford. I know what you're thinking, can it still be called child labor if you're over 18years old? To this I respond: YES. I'm still the child, and my mom was still reaping the rewards of my labor. Actually, it was refreshing to have my hands in dirt, planting and imagining the possibilities. After the hectic chaos of the last few months, the time with my mom was rejuvinating. My last night in the midwest was restless as the cat, dog & I battled for precious couch space. Little did I know this symbolic territorial battle was training for life in NYC. At one point, I woke up with a hefty, long haired mammal balancing across my forehead, feigning sleep. At the moment, it was difficult to believe I would miss such a moment. The next morning I hugged my mom goodbye, scratched Blackberry's cheeks (though she was already staking out the window sills, glaring and asserting her authority) and accelerated through the gears towards the great unknown. I started early with the hopes of arriving in Pennsylvania at a reasonable hour, but as with any great adventure, there were obstacles....time consuming, anxiety raising, obstacles.

The trip started innocently with me settling into the driving ZONE, listening to music and ignoring the miles. Oddly enough, Chicago traffic was relatively light. A friend once commented, after purchasing an IPASS, how empowering it feels to zip smoothly through the tolls. I'm disturbed to report I agree- the old toll system of downshifting, stopping and agonizingly morphing the grimace to a smile for the toll booth worker (repeating "low unemployment rates are good") created resentment for the IL toll system. But now, with this handy device, I find I enjoy the tolls, anticipating them by speeding up and smiling with a cockiness unconnected with the reality of the magical transaction causing me to loose money. The miles, music and money flowed easily as I crossed into and through Indiana. Somewhere late in the morning, I crossed that imaginary line, and saw the diminutive sign, and lost an hour. Switching from music to the NPR CD's my mom had given me, I settled further into the bucket seat to endure Ohio. As I laughed and lost many miles to stories of slaughering plants, drug addicts and crossed wires, the smooth landscape of plowed fields flowed by. I must interject a coping strategy for these long road trips when the bum goes numb: at every gas fill up (3 for this trip) I jump rope for several minutes. In the late afternoon, as I neared the end of Ohio, a strange diversion occurred. On the eastern side of Youngstown OH, the major highway, 80 was shut down. Now for those of you who remember last summer's adventures in Youngstown OH, I was a bit disturbed by this apparent conspiracy of the universe to keep me in its clutches. Without police or any explanation for the diversion, I followed the traffic up an unknown highway. At the time, I didn't have GPS and although I scanned the radios for any explanation for the diversion (and more importantly, what to do next!), there wasn't an answer. I did the only logical thing....follow the semi's (HDDV's) and call my uncle with internet access. At what appeared to be a random exit, the semi's were leaving, so I followed them through a string of backroads until finally I returned to the major highway. This hour long diversion was costly to my precious energy levels. Later that day, my uncle tracked down the reason for the delay: a semi had driven over an SUV during a slowdown sometime around 2pm- when I arrived it was past 5pm and the city still was unable to post any direction or information about the diversion. I will mention here my deep fear of semi trucks driving over cars (several years ago a similar thing happened in Madison) and how when traffic slows on major interstates, I check my rear-view mirror and try to keep several cars behind me, between me and any semi's. I'm always grateful when the semi's stop & the drivers are alert. But back to the journey.....by this time, the sandwiches my mom had sent were consumed, the snacks devoured and the ZONE had consumed me....and I still had to traverse Pennsylvania.