The Agony of Anticipation and Car Trunks

As often happens, I was up five minutes before the alarm.  Ever since I can remember, I have great anticipation before a trip.  I  had virtually everything packed the day before.  My head was restless on the pillow; it had been a full day with no stops.  My mind needed to catch up, actually slow down to meet my resting body.  My mind is a distant sprinter that has to be coaxed to sit still.  What did I hope to get from this trip?  What was at stake? Could I set an intention.  I brushed the question aside, not because they weren’t good, but because I need to sleep.  I could turn to them on the road--and I knew that I would be able to fall asleep, but likely anticipation would wake me.

Anticipation of adventure keeps my boredom at bay. I remember once when we lived in Charleston, my family was taking a road trip to Edisto Beach. I must have been six or seven.  I remember lugging the bags to help my mom pack the car.  We were preparing everything so that when my dad came home, we could hop on the road.  My sister was always one who could entertain herself, but I grew bored easily. So when we finished and my mom said he would be home in fifteen minutes to half an hour and I thought that was forever.  I paced the floors and practically created new holes in the threadbare carpeting in the living room.  Every five minutes I ask if it was time yet, but once we reached time, my father was nowhere in sight.  And as the time ticked away, it was as if someone was literally torturing me like time passing was like a cord attaching itself to each limb and pulling tauter being drawn and quartered.

Finally, I succumbed to grumpy disappointment.  Hours later when he came home, the anticipation wound up again like a renewed puppy as I ran around the house forcing the irritated conversation between my parents to resolve quickly.  As my dad opened the trunk to the station wagon, to put in one more thing, I was so eager to go and proud that my arm could reach as high as the open trunk door that I grasped it and slammed it shut.  That was one of the first memorable times I heard my father curse as the corner of the trunk made contact with his forehead.  Blood seeped onto the cement.  This of course delayed the trip further.  The shock of it, the yelling, the witnessing of my father in pain was a big swirl of muck. Sick to my stomach, I felt so much shame at what I had done and that I still wanted to get going. I offered a meek apology, knowing not to ask “are we still going.”  My parents determined no stitches were needed and once bandaged we made our way.

New Orleans, The Logical Choice

  (How I ended up in New Orleans after college)

My senior year of college, I remember the anxiety of taking the LSATs. I needed to get a 40 or higher to get into a "good" law school.  President of Hillel, working 20 hours at Evanston Special Recreation, my senior course load had to be balanced with my Stanley Kaplan course to prepare for the mind bending logic puzzles on the LSATs.  The stress of what to do after school mounted.  I had no clear ideas though, my parents expected that I dutifully continue my education.

Taking standardized tests were not stressful until in the tenth grade I bombed the PSATs. When I took them a second time, I proudly brought my scores to my faculty advisor who was also the headmaster. He took the test results from my hands, scanned it and proclaimed, "Well lightning strikes!" Crestfallen, I asked, being the approval hungry teenager, "You think this is a fluke?" Dismissively with his Boston (read Harvard) accent he barked, "In all my years I have never seen a single student's score jump this many hundred points!"

This explains when later that year why I burst into his office with another test score in my hands. This time the all important SAT scores were waving in my grasp like a victory flag. "Look at this! It's the exact same score as my last PSATs." I held it up for him to see with my Cheshire Cat grin smirking like I had won this tussle.  Only to be punched in the gut when he shrugged, "I guess lightning strikes twice."

Dejected I left his office, despite a good score. My parents and my college advisor though were not satisfied and insisted on me taking the SATs again.  Surely, I could do even better. Nauseated and fearful the night before the next SATs, I never made it to the test just in case lightning had indeed struck twice and would not repeat a third miracle.

I felt the same pit in my stomach this time, what if I had indeed fooled everyone at Northwestern University and was not a bright student. I took the LSATs utilizing every rational and logical facility I could muster, though my fear of bombing countered with every irrational thought and illogical conclusion.

What if my scores would be so awful that no law school would admit me.  I applied to some service programs in Israel and then the fledgling Teach For America. My application for TFA was accepted for an interview.  I needed to prepare a student lesson.  I showed up to the interview dressed up in a toga that I had embellished with grapes and Greek flourishes.  I plied them with a platter of grapes, cheese and crackers for the interviewers as I told the Dionysian myth of why dolphins were so human-like.  My delivery and engagement led me to the next round of interviews where I had a bootcamp like scarefest of an interview where a butch lesbian (I'm certain!) screamed in my face about children dangling from a window and demanding to know that instant "What would I do?"

I found out a week before the LSATs came that I had been accepted to the second corps of TFA.  More exciting to me was that I had been granted my first choice of placements: New Orleans.  Though I had a backup I still trembled when the LSATs scores came in the mail.  "Did lightning strike?"  I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my score was in the acceptable range of everyone else's expectations.

Then I breathed a second deep breath. Unable to contain myself, I broke into a smile, not out of relief but because I decided in that moment that law school could wait two years.

I would start my adult life in New Orleans.

On the Rogue Again: I love road trips!

On the Rogue Again: I love road trips!: I love road trips.  Before I had meditation, I had road trips. Buckling up, putting on music and heading out on the road is its own kind of...

I love road trips!

I love road trips.  Before I had meditation, I had road trips. Buckling up, putting on music and heading out on the road is its own kind of adventure.  There is a shedding of layers. There is control and a responsibility that one does not experience as a passenger on a plane, a train or a bus. I am the master of my destiny, or at least my destination. 

The black asphalt and white lines, the blue sky and the dots of color of the other cars and billboards array themselves like an impressionistic painting and my mind begins to loosen.  The stream of consciousness begins to flow and I feel free.  

Sometimes I feel such an expansive joy.  It is like I am in motion.  I am. But really in motion connecting with the vastness of the planets and the stars and the ocean tides.  My former nomad, my ancient wandering Jew has found his flight and my restless heart has begun its journey.  I feel connected to it all and I begin to sing with the radio.  Sometimes, I look for radio stations that play music from the 80s, which floods my mind with memories of  High School and the beginnings of college.  I can be as light as a Cyndi Lauper tune or as heavy as Nirvana or pensive as the Indigo Girls.  But I am transported to the past while I am going 70 miles per hour into my future.  

Sometimes a road trip is just sheer adventure, like when I drove from Atlanta to Denver the back way through Shreveport, Dallas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.  I stopped at roadside attractions like an exotic zoo,and at random places the Aloha gym, or the OK Corral Barber Shop, State parks for a mid-drive hike break. I brought along Hashem, an Ugly doll, who after all since Hashem is everywhere managed to be in pictures along the drive even in a llama's mouth.  People and destinations broke up the long drive each becoming its own exciting story.

Then I think of the times when to be on the road touches my heart in such a way that it opens to the longing for that which I lack or a grief of what could have been.  Some of my best road trips have been long and alone.  In that place of being alone, I feel the weight finally sinking so that tears flow.  Leaving college, I was heading to Teach for America in Los Angeles. Finishing my requirements early, I packed up my car and took off without saying good-bye to anyone.  Leaving a semi-closeted life with many a regret, I wanted to shed my life like a snake skin. The Josh of college needed to be retired and allow what might be to manifest. Driving to Los Angeles, over two weeks with a stop to meet my family in Santa Fe, I was excited that I packed quickly and went stealthily onto the road.  Once I hit the highway, I put my Melissa Etheridge cassette tape in and began to sing and then the tears began to flow. With the weight of the compelling need to escape and make a clean break, I cried from Chicago all the way to Saint Louis but once I arrived in St. Louis.  I could breathe.  I treated myself to a good dinner and felt lighter.  Let the adventure begin, I thought.  

Nov. 22nd will be a year since my relationship ended with its shocking revelations.  It is Thanksgiving.  Hmm, what is the universe telling me?  This year has served up a Yom Kippur birthday, a Thanksgiving ending anniversary.  What's in store for me?   Perhaps, this is a year of cleansing, stripping back down to vulnerability, being grateful that something worse may have been averted?  I don't know, but I am starting Friday; I have two weeks and change off and I am going on the rogue again.  What will the road bring me?  I don't know. 

 Destination: New Orleans to volunteer and teach, then to Columbus for Thanksgiving and then your guess is as good as mine.  Care to follow?  Buckle up.