I've really never taken whirlygirl on the road before.
I mean, sure, there was that time that I was flitting about the country in my little convertible car,
driving through snow storms in Wyoming with the top down and counting the number of tumble weeds that blew
across my path in Texas. But I wasn't actually out there with my computer creating. Sitting down in front
of this blank screen with these coded characters trying to think these thoughts into hyphenated run-on sentences
and pitiful fragments.
No. Back then I was calling Todd from a pay phone outside of the McDonald's
at the entrance to the Grand Canyon, fingers freezing while I tried desperately to pull the phone cord through
the 98% rolled-up window. Reading to him the scratches that I made in my notebook over a depressing breakfast and
a black, black coffee. It was adventure. But it was delayed. Postponed. Bouncing from satellite to satellite
before becoming real.
But now I'm flying. Up up up up in the sky. Somewhere over an etched and stretched Long Island.
On my way to Boston for one of those insanely gung-ho, productive work weeks. On my way to a relaxing weekend
in Maine where the rocks and the stars and the coolest, pine fresh air awaits. And here, in seat 7F, now somewhere over
Connecticut, I'm starting to get excited.
Today the gray sky and my longing soul played tricks on me. I stretched out on my bed to take a break from
the stress of last-minute packing and had lunch with Brandon. There was this intense dread welling up inside that
spilled out in the form of silly 6th grade analogies. But I think the take-off was just a little too fast, or the incline
a little too steep, and that dread just couldn't keep up. Instead it's piled back on a National Airport runway
while I cavort among the clouds.
Sometimes momentum is a beautiful thing. It pushes us along through the dread and the hurry and the
welled-up tears and the nervousness and spits us out in a tiny patch of wonder. Where the horizon bathes
in a silvery-purple sheen and the ocean stretches on for infinity. It restores our faith in the surprises
of what's next. Up there. Just beyond the bend. You know. Where our sidewalk ends.
|
