Alchemic Verse

The next leg of the trip I made shorter; thankfully, the spot was ready early so we checked in without having to take a squiggly mountain route and kill time, nor bribe Junebug with a pupcup. I took the interstate instead, which still boasted extraordinary views of the mountains and valleys the region is famed for. As summer was coming to a close, and I headed further on the charted course, leaves truly began to show their colors more and more – gold, crimson, burnt sienna.

Driving along the interstate I was surprised by one thing in particular – those blue signs that precede exits to tell you gas, attractions, lodgings, almost all of them had been completely blued out with no listings for any category. It occured to me that the remote parts of the country in particular were affected deeply by both COVID and natural disaster damages, and ultimately had yet to rebuild, a poignant reminder that rebuilding takes time. And still, mother nature flourishes on – when the mist and cloud burned off and visibility improved, her majesty was unmatched as always, with or without Days Inns and Burger Kings on the blue signs.

The first half of this trip felt like paddling through Rivendell, while the latter half felt like mosying if swiftly through Lothlorien. This cabin required some careful directing from the hosts deep into the back of a sprawling property on a lane that was little more than tire tracks, so much so that they included instructions with photos and arrows – thoughtful and absolutely necessary.

The payoff was a beautiful, private sprawl in a thicket of trees each slowly sprinkling their colors to the ground below. The deck that wrapped around the property had two sections, one where a hot tub promised an excellent soak, and a second where a grill would make for a properly festive cookout had I the company.

As it was just Juniper and I, I opted for stopping at a Dunkin’ Donuts for requisite coffee breakfast on the way and, with limited choices, a gas station market for some Chef Boyardee, ramen, some local jerky, a couple gallons of water, some trail mix, and some soup, to be augmented by the salad and apples I brought with me. I didn’t leave the cabin for the duration, given its remoteness and my hesitatation to leave Juniper by herself in an unfamiliar spot, so the double night stay here was focused on self-care, meditation, writing, finishing my audiobook, and imagining what my life might look like now.

In those meditations, I came to face the change – that I was not the same person that set sail some months prior. In that time, I navigated physical and mental challenges on this journey that I never thought I would ever choose to face let alone surmount. Still, in the grand dichotomy, I had so many ideas for what “next” might look like, and short of just picking something and going with it, my direction didn’t feel any clearer.

Leaning into the peaceful silence reminded me to take it one day at a time, to continue appreciation of each moment of my living experience, to plant roots in gratitude, and to carry proudly the newly-proven fortitude that resulted from throwing myself at the challenge of machete-ing a new path in life. The pup slithered her body along mine to snore soundly into my armpit, and in that warm proximity I felt genuinely, wholly that might be one of the luckiest people alive.

The second day there, while relaxing, was also vibrating with restlessness. I canceled the last two nights of the journey and planned to proceed directly to my destination after the next stop. In my antsiness, I felt waves of anxiety wash over me, unsure of whether I would even find the comfort or rest I hoped to find at the end.

In an effort to balance that discomfort, I drank black coffee on the back porch for breakfast, with the swish of leaves and birdsong for company.

I then walked the soft mossy grounds of the property barefoot, peeking into the dilapidated sheds, felt the sturdy bark of the old towering trees that canopied the cabin, and caught fruit as it fell from the lower layer of harvest-ready branches that swayed beneath. Allowing the patches of clover which were soft as velvet to pillow my feet between patches of crisp leafcover, the cool breeze wove newly gliding russet leaves down beside me and into my hair.

My dog was also restless, expecting we would leave in the morning as the prior stays.  Instead of napping, despite two failed attempts, I repeatedly threw different sticks as the captain in the world’s most one-sided game of fetch. She chased each projectile and demolished it to mulch until I tossed another. We were watched only by a myriad of butterflies and the occasional bird.

Inside, a mounted trophy buck peered at us from the cabin walls… I will never feel comfortable in the glassy gaze of a preserved animal. With one more night there, another night somewhere else, and finally our landing where we planned to stay for the foreseeable future, I wished again that I could teleport both in time and space on a tesseract.

I finished listening to A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle in which, without spoiling much of the plot, a fictional planet with a totalitarian state is defeated with by the power of love and authentic individuality. The book contains elements of physics, theology, and spiritualism, which in the afterword her grandaughter explained why the book was banned by each side of the table, specifically for having included the other parts.

For my part, it always seemed obvious that the lessons of theology and spirituality are intertwinable with the science of psychology, energy and matter. When you look at the venn diagram of their respective teachings, there’s a lot more overlap than one might consider at the surface. I don’t know what drew me to listen to it again on this trip other than “It’s in my Audible library” but it seemed somewhat portentous, as love and individuality are the primary thematic elements in this latest chapter of my life. I admittedly hadn’t remembered much of the book save enjoying it as a kid.

Behind any observed sound, even the audio book narration, random songs and their lyrics kept rising into my mind, “Still Remains” by Stone Temple Pilots, “Happy Now” by Zedd, specifically the acoustic version… I wished fervently for the next day’s road shuffle to replace the repeating melodies and lines that were slowly driving me mad.

Hard shifting my thinking to things to look forward to, I began to construct and loosely form plans for when I finally would arrive at a place of relative stability off the road. I tried to be adaptable, to bend and pivot as the currents push this way and that, but admittedly I had started to feel flimsy, like metal that repeatedly bent simply breaks when you try to shape it back.

Unsure of my ability to endure much more bending or breaking, I thought back to what I was doing this time last year, a different flavor of stagnation and sadness, swaying into periods of coming unglued. Were things better now, or just different? I was certainly different. As we took our leave, a red feather fell before my feet, and since its discovery, it has a place of reverence on the console as a reminder to fly.