First of all, I want to apologize for some of the grammar and formatting issues of recent posts. I need to become a better editor or simply look at blog posts after I compose them.
Clouds mustered above the fields in fluffy dollops, the sort we would watch from our side of the lake as they formed over Vermont. Though the sun shone in a blue sky, the weather overhead felt more present and ominous than it did from the Chazy shorelines, even when the storm clouds formed. Spooked, I occasionally laid into the pedal, so that I might outrun any ambush of rain.
Way led on to way until I was cruising down the less quaint lanes of I-81, passing Syracuse with a feigned gagging and a very real nostalgia for the two trips the gang and I made for Georgetown away games. Though I missed having a co-pilot like Tom or Paul, I was beginning to enjoy the solitude after the morning-to-night company that the lake trip entails. It's a haven of a location, but you are never truly alone at the lake unless you want to wake up at 5:30. I remain thankful for the faux solitude of my study breaks with Colin.
Next came I-90 and, at last, the crossing into Canada. I stopped beforehand to refuel, hoping to avoid any sort of transactions over the coming hours not knowing what my various cards did over the border. The service area turned out to have a Tim Horton's, checking a pseudo-box of mine in terms of Canadian experiences. One tall iced coffee and some Timbits later, I sat face-to-face with the border patrol, feeling like a criminal as one often does, especially one with a MD license and a GA car (thanks to some bureaucracy between both states). I did not, however, anticipate how disarming honesty would be in my case:
Border Patrol: Where are you going in Canada?
Ian: Actually, I'm passing through to Michigan.
BP: What's in Michigan?
Ian: The first of several Best Westerns on my way to Nevada.
BP: What's in Nevada?
Ian: A friend I'm staying with for a few weeks.
BP: What do you do for a living?
Ian: I was an actuary back in Atlanta, but I quit to try and write a book.
BP: What sort of book?
Ian: A fictional book about sea monsters. I've always found them interesting.
BP: Wow, ok, well perhaps I should take your name down and then when your book makes it big, I'll say you made it big!
Ian: Sounds like a plan to me!
BP: Well, off you go and good luck!
The four-hour Canadian drive itself leaves little to be described at the outset. Once or twice, I saw flashes of the Great Lakes on either side, even once glimpsing Toronto far across the water, its buildings impossibly small. More often, though, I simply managed the km/h speed limits and listened to Nerdist podcasts. In fact, Benedict Cumberbatch's charming fart noises got me through the lowest point of the day's drive, when the hours catch up just as the scenery falls away.
Then, stopping at a Canadian service area for a bio break, I had a brain wave. Years back in my travels, I had come upon a CD called "Heading West." It was a mix of various artists curated into a backdrop for the Great American Road Trip or so the packaging implied, all empty highways and speed limit signs. Last year, with the move to LA approaching, I had specifically placed said CD in the driver's side door, aiming to play it for the first time when I was truly "heading west." Then, of course, life happened.
A year and a month later than that journey-not-taken, almost to the day, I got back in the car and opened that case, ready at last to embrace the music of my chosen path.
Unfortunately, what I found in the sleeve was the first disc of an audiobook called Confronting Reality, a book about changing how you think about business. I have no idea what happened to put it there or where the true CD may be. It must not have ever been there. This realization crushed me and brought with it another wave of fear and sadness. Last year, I was planning to shoot myself across the country in a cannon, sure, but towards someone I loved, a job I knew, and a city I was excited to live in. Now I find myself launched at last, airborne, but without that comfortable airbag awaiting my descent. I know I have Erik's generosity and the beauty of Tahoe ahead, as well as the surprising hospitality of others this week, but that landing will still be so very, very different.
By the way, I don't know why I'm drawn to the circus imagery of highwires and human cannonballs. Perhaps because I've been talking up the act like a ringleader and now comes the moment itself...I'll think about that in the car today.
Defeated by strange CD mishaps, I switched back to the podcasts. Then, something lovely happened. As Henry Winkler waxed enthusiastically about the joys of his career with his family coming in and out of the podcast like characters in a farce, the sun began setting in front of me and the sky fractured into radiant colors stitched one to the other by the silhouettes of yet more wind turbines. Here it was, my first true road sunset, and I bloomed to it. My energy renewed itself and I pushed away dread with the conviction that, win or loss, fly or fall, this is the path for me now. There will be fear, yes, but there will also be beauty.
A few hours later, I crossed the Ambassador Bridge into Michigan, once again accepted the encouragement of a bemused border agent, and finally flopped blissfully onto a big, fluffy king bed in Livonia, MI.
Onward to Iowa.
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