Origin of Road Trip Dream

A year or so ago, I was an executive administrative assistant in Manhattan who knew I would be down-sized at some point.  It was a possibility, milling in the works.  At that point, I had lived away from Minnesota (in LA & NYC, respectively) for about 7 years.  During that time, I typically had a job somewhere, and my limited vacation time & $ was often spent on my twice a year voyage to MN where my family is (summer for birthdays, winter for Christmas).  But over the years I'd amassed a quantity of fascinating friends, family and mentors who had spread themselves out across the US and the globe.  Many I've not had the chance to visit for ages.  Examples:
  • childhood best friend Cassandra, seen last time at wedding in 1994 
  • closest cousin in childhood, Sara, seen once briefly since 1995 
  • close friend and fellow poetry enthusiast Jen from college, not seen since 1999  
There are lots more, but suffice it to say I am lonely for their kindred-spirit-hood...and miss having their energy & spark in my life.  Plus, there are spouses and kids I haven't met and goshdarnit, it's about time!

So, all that to say, I began to hatch a plan.
I wrote lists of people I wanted to visit.
I contemplated subleasing my room in my Brooklyn apt. for a few months.
I connected the dots on maps.

I had never had my drivers license, so I tried to work out the 2-month deals Amtrak and Greyhound were offering...Amtrak's stops were not continuous and made sporadic departures from intuitive lines of travel...Greyhound would have been too much 'carrying my life on my back' as I have some bum arms, w/'cubital tunnel syndrome' which is sometimes no problem, and sometimes a nightmare.  Didn't want to take any chances.  I decided I would need to learn to drive. 

Finally in July 2010 I received the news of my impending layoff, after nearly 5 years with my company.  August 9th, on my first day of my business trip to our company's HQ in Indianapolis to transfer my duties, I went to the HR office to receive my letter of termination which stated my last day with them would be September 30, 2010.  A few hours later, after returning in from lunch, I received an email from my landlord (the same landlord who had not raised our insanely low rent in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn for 5 years, and had allowed us to be on month-to-month without a lease for all that time) saying he was sorry, but he and his lady-friend were moving back from Kentucky and were going to renovate our apartment, so my roommate and I would have to evacuate by September 30.

This sort of improbable coincidence is not so uncommon in my life as it is in others, but that did not stop me from getting a migraine (I rarely ever have those) and wandering around like a zombie that day and kind of for the rest of the trip and crying VERY hard while playing angsty guitar in my hotel room that night.  All I knew was that Brooklyn was giving me the left foot of fellowship, that God was closing a door on a chapter in my life I had loved, and that I couldn't see the window he was opening yet.

Not long after, I connected on Facebook with a girl named Jamie Lidberg who had been part of a ministry internship I'd co-led in Minnesota back in 2002.  When she heard about my trip, she wanted in.  She 1) had a car, and 2) had almost gone on a similar trip the year before but her friend backed out.  We decided to both move back to Minnesota - she would work and save up for the trip while at her parents and I would learn to drive.  Plan: I'd get my license in Oct., we'd travel Nov. & Dec., back in time for Christmas.

That didn't work.  I did get my license in Oct. (*curtsy* yes, at 34, thankyouverymuch), but financially it turned out to be too soon for Jamie to embark.  Then, it didn't seem Winter was a very good season to road trip in.  I received an invite to a May wedding for some good friends of mine in Brooklyn.  If I didn't get a job, unemployment would hold me over through April; if I did, things might need some rescheduling.  Thankfully, the job market is still rather awful and I have received very few responses.  May/June became the new goal.  Jamie was in again.  Now again, I had nearly 2 months worth of road-tripping to do...which I artistically wanted to do in one fell swoop.  As the dates crept closer, Jamie became less and less sure she could travel with me for that long, eventually saying that about 2 weeks was about what she could offer.

This was trouble.  This was work.  This was complicating my beautiful circle.  It wouldn't be easy to reroute my whole excel spreadsheet.  And WHO would do the rest with me?  Time was running out.  One Sunday in church, during Lent, I told God I was willing to let it go.  Even though I'd been haunted by this trip for a year (or maybe even two), and  I couldn't possibly see what else I would be happy doing until I got it out of my system, I took it with my mind (the heart would not follow) and laid it on the altar.  I give up.  I've tried.  I've tried again.  It's too much fighting, and I don't even know for sure this is what I'm supposed to be doing - I only know I can't shake the dream of it.

I had made a commitment during Lent (like an anti-fast) to spend one hour a day in a coffee shop.  Some people do that all the time and it wouldn't be a fast(/anti-fast).  But unemployed, I tended to hermitize...and as I fancied that if God wished me to touch other people's lives in any way, it worked better if I was among them, I tried this option.  This particular Sunday, the one I gave up the trip, I stayed after for an hour to read (my church meets in a coffee shop here).  The very short book I read was on my Kindle: How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett

Therein I encountered this quote.

A man may desire to go to Mecca.  His conscience tells him that he ought to go to Mecca.  He fares forth, either by the aid of Cook's or unassisted; he may probably never reach Mecca; he may drown before he gets to Port Said; he may perish ingloriously on the coast of the Red Sea; his desire may remain eternally frustrate.  Unfulfilled aspiration may always trouble him.  But he will not be tormented in the same way as the man who, desiring to reach Mecca, and harried by the desire to reach Mecca, never leaves Brixton.

He followed this with: "It is something to have left Brixton.  Most of us have not left Brixton."

This was a time management book for goodness' sake! 

I felt a small small nudge.  A still small voice.  Just a whisper of a wind saying perhaps, "Go on.  Give it one more try."

I went back to the drawing board.  I revisioned the trip in two directions - May to NYC, June to the West Coast via the Pacific Northwest and then up from Texas.  As of today, April 26th, I have Jamie Lidberg with me for 15-16 days (she then moves to Ohio), and I am envisioning a way to get from Brooklyn to Nashville with another friend before flying home perhaps.  And I have another girl who is leaning heavily (perhaps 90%) toward traveling West w/me the whole of June, although it will incorporate some creative traveling on both our parts (she'll fly back to MN for a few days from LA; I'll take a bus or train or plane back from Chicago at the end).

Somewhere in here too, a few weeks ago I acquired a fantastic boyfriend.  Said boyfriend is in a band (2 actually) called Farewell Continental which is traveling also in May and June.  May to the East.  June to the West.  He'll have shows in the same areas I am traveling on in both trips - Brooklyn, and LA and SanFran, it appears.  I didn't plan that on purpose - it just happened.  THIS is Crazy, capital C.

5 days 'til take-off!  The adventure begins....!  Feel free to come along for the ride.  :)