Thoughts From Places
My favorite author does these little episodes on Youtube of his thoughts from the places he's been. I want to start writing, and I recently went to a place, so I thought I'd give it a go.
In the morning, much later than I had wanted to, I got going. I was heading back to Houghton to visit Tom and KT and the blueberry-baby. I was excited, but frustrated with myself. My uncooperative body demanded sleep, but my heart demanded adventure. So I hurried myself, lost my keys, found my keys, lose my shoe, found my shoe, forgot my wallet, grabbed my phone, and headed out the door. I knew I had to put gas in the car, and had to pull out two different cards and some coins to have enough. As I laid my meager offerings on the wooden countertop of my local gas stop, where the woman ringing me out asked how my grandfather was, I felt my cheeks burn with shame. I had nine dollars left for my trip should anything go wrong - I was broke.
But no matter, I was off. Or was I? It's always the days you have to be somewhere that you get stuck behind a tractor. Or someone who is driving a boat of a vehicle 20mph under the posted speed limit is ahead of you, and every time you edge towards the yellow line they decide to take their half of the road out of the middle, and you're just as stuck as ever. I passed through the town where my mother works, where I went to high school. It is the same today as it was 11 years ago. Same crappy cars lining main street, all belonging to the seniors. Same sign advertising the same Rotary fundraiser. Same prom, being held in the same location. I shook myself free of that town and that tractor that that car, and had a few miles of 55mph to get ahead. Only I didn't, because it's spring and that means potholes. Not just the annoying ones, but the ones that kill tires. I may not know much about repairing vehicles, but I know that $9 will not buy you a tire.
So I am careful, and I pick my way through the pock-marked pavement. Through the next few slow-and-go towns that you'd miss if you blinked. And I finally settle into the part of my journey where the roads wind less but climb more, and the sharp turns turn into wide arcs. This is farm country, and I used to love driving this way because of all the great old barns that stand resiliently along the way. Only I'm noticing that my beloved barns, standing strong against the ravages of weather and time, have started to give way. The biggest and best is gone completely, the ground is raw and rutted where it used to stand. I have hopes for the barn, maybe the Amish or the Mennonites came and took it to a new home, but a giant burn pile in the field sours my hopes. A little ways farther up the hill there stands a tall, three-story barn. It always looked well kept, so I am shocked to see that half of the barn has fallen away. For a second I think it looks like a doll house, but then I get closer and see that the middle floor used to be someone's workshop, and there are huge half-finished pieces of furniture everywhere. And in that moment I feel like a voyeur, like I frightened a neighbor who was only wearing a towel, and now I'm staring at them, staring at their exposed self as their towel lies crumpled around their feet. I drive on, and there's a house that's been abandoned. I can tell because of the sign posted outside, because I know this area and I know the agencies that auction bank-repossessed homes. Now I'm getting angry - things are supposed to be getting better. Things are supposed to be turning around. Time has passed, we are supposed to have learned our lessons and figured something out, but instead everything was just broken. Broken, that word echoed in my mind. The road is broken. The buildings are broken. I'm broken. So I drove my broken self along the broken roads through the broken towns, and felt generally very miserable. The joy of this trip was still going to be in the people I would meet at its end, but I had so desperately wanted something good. And I got inside my head and felt very deeply sad. Until something small out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.
It was this house, this house that had always been teetering on the brink. Every year it looked a little worse, a little more crooked, a little more like the occupants might want need to worry if the winds blew too strong. But it didn't look like that anymore. It has new windows, so new that the stickers still haven't been taken off. And new siding, the good stuff, the kind that won't peel and split two years down the road. And there's a paved driveway now, and what look like flowerbeds. Signs of life in the middle of everything that's broken. Jolted out of my frame of mind, I started to actively look for hope. And to my surprise, I found it. A new house that had been built. An old trailer that had been taken away and it's former site cleaned up. A business that had added another building. I started to feel ok again, like these small things meant so much more than they really do.
I got to Houghton and there were signs of construction, and I raced on to see my friends. And I got hugs, and heard their baby boy laugh. Best of all was being able to talk as if we had just seen each other yesterday and were picking up our conversation again, talking like we didn't live 5 (or 25) hours away. Friends like that are what makes the broken pieces not matter so much. The visit was so much but too short, as those types of visits always are, but the feeling lasted. And as I drove home through a fog that had rolled though the hills, the feeling of being that deeply loved and of having people that I love that much in return stuck with me. I have felt so broken in the last few days, the last year, but the difference of the last few days has been that when I think all hope is lost, I reach for that feeling. That knowledge, that things are broken, but there is hope. Which may be a simple lesson, but one worth finding out is true.
I'll see you on the flip side.
In the morning, much later than I had wanted to, I got going. I was heading back to Houghton to visit Tom and KT and the blueberry-baby. I was excited, but frustrated with myself. My uncooperative body demanded sleep, but my heart demanded adventure. So I hurried myself, lost my keys, found my keys, lose my shoe, found my shoe, forgot my wallet, grabbed my phone, and headed out the door. I knew I had to put gas in the car, and had to pull out two different cards and some coins to have enough. As I laid my meager offerings on the wooden countertop of my local gas stop, where the woman ringing me out asked how my grandfather was, I felt my cheeks burn with shame. I had nine dollars left for my trip should anything go wrong - I was broke.
But no matter, I was off. Or was I? It's always the days you have to be somewhere that you get stuck behind a tractor. Or someone who is driving a boat of a vehicle 20mph under the posted speed limit is ahead of you, and every time you edge towards the yellow line they decide to take their half of the road out of the middle, and you're just as stuck as ever. I passed through the town where my mother works, where I went to high school. It is the same today as it was 11 years ago. Same crappy cars lining main street, all belonging to the seniors. Same sign advertising the same Rotary fundraiser. Same prom, being held in the same location. I shook myself free of that town and that tractor that that car, and had a few miles of 55mph to get ahead. Only I didn't, because it's spring and that means potholes. Not just the annoying ones, but the ones that kill tires. I may not know much about repairing vehicles, but I know that $9 will not buy you a tire.
So I am careful, and I pick my way through the pock-marked pavement. Through the next few slow-and-go towns that you'd miss if you blinked. And I finally settle into the part of my journey where the roads wind less but climb more, and the sharp turns turn into wide arcs. This is farm country, and I used to love driving this way because of all the great old barns that stand resiliently along the way. Only I'm noticing that my beloved barns, standing strong against the ravages of weather and time, have started to give way. The biggest and best is gone completely, the ground is raw and rutted where it used to stand. I have hopes for the barn, maybe the Amish or the Mennonites came and took it to a new home, but a giant burn pile in the field sours my hopes. A little ways farther up the hill there stands a tall, three-story barn. It always looked well kept, so I am shocked to see that half of the barn has fallen away. For a second I think it looks like a doll house, but then I get closer and see that the middle floor used to be someone's workshop, and there are huge half-finished pieces of furniture everywhere. And in that moment I feel like a voyeur, like I frightened a neighbor who was only wearing a towel, and now I'm staring at them, staring at their exposed self as their towel lies crumpled around their feet. I drive on, and there's a house that's been abandoned. I can tell because of the sign posted outside, because I know this area and I know the agencies that auction bank-repossessed homes. Now I'm getting angry - things are supposed to be getting better. Things are supposed to be turning around. Time has passed, we are supposed to have learned our lessons and figured something out, but instead everything was just broken. Broken, that word echoed in my mind. The road is broken. The buildings are broken. I'm broken. So I drove my broken self along the broken roads through the broken towns, and felt generally very miserable. The joy of this trip was still going to be in the people I would meet at its end, but I had so desperately wanted something good. And I got inside my head and felt very deeply sad. Until something small out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.
It was this house, this house that had always been teetering on the brink. Every year it looked a little worse, a little more crooked, a little more like the occupants might want need to worry if the winds blew too strong. But it didn't look like that anymore. It has new windows, so new that the stickers still haven't been taken off. And new siding, the good stuff, the kind that won't peel and split two years down the road. And there's a paved driveway now, and what look like flowerbeds. Signs of life in the middle of everything that's broken. Jolted out of my frame of mind, I started to actively look for hope. And to my surprise, I found it. A new house that had been built. An old trailer that had been taken away and it's former site cleaned up. A business that had added another building. I started to feel ok again, like these small things meant so much more than they really do.
I got to Houghton and there were signs of construction, and I raced on to see my friends. And I got hugs, and heard their baby boy laugh. Best of all was being able to talk as if we had just seen each other yesterday and were picking up our conversation again, talking like we didn't live 5 (or 25) hours away. Friends like that are what makes the broken pieces not matter so much. The visit was so much but too short, as those types of visits always are, but the feeling lasted. And as I drove home through a fog that had rolled though the hills, the feeling of being that deeply loved and of having people that I love that much in return stuck with me. I have felt so broken in the last few days, the last year, but the difference of the last few days has been that when I think all hope is lost, I reach for that feeling. That knowledge, that things are broken, but there is hope. Which may be a simple lesson, but one worth finding out is true.
I'll see you on the flip side.