I was back from my cross-country road trip for three weeks and someone asked me, “What are you going to do now?” I took a moment to consider her question. Was she asking, “How am I going to adjust as I settle back home in one place after being on the road for so long?” Or about my work, as in, “When will you get back to city planning and your firm CivicMoxie?” Or maybe the question was, “What’s my follow-up act to top that epic journey?”
I have settled into home life surprisingly easily. My daughter came back from her gap semester travels just as I got home in mid-December and I helped her prepare to start college last week. And I had a lot to catch up on with my sons. As for my consulting firm, I am unsure what my work future looks like and didn’t think much about it on the road, which is fine.
My follow-up act to the trip?
That is a different story and it has been on my mind for a while now. I have used the word “magic” to describe my journey this past fall and magic is a very hard act to follow. Every day was a smorgasbord of new things…art that provoked, places that pleased and excited, foods and drink to be enjoyed, people to meet, varied skies and landscapes to ponder in awe and gratitude. So many new things in fact, that at a museum visit early on, it struck me that I was the best kind of open receptacle on the trip –my entire being engaged in drawing in and holding new ideas, sensations, and thoughts, soaking up everything around me.
My journal bears this out. There is the Haiku I wrote at sunset at Badlands National Park, crying in awe, “Landscape meets me here. Windswept pinnacle. Tears for this beauty.” And my entry that marveled in gratitude at the help I have had in my life during challenging times. That one was written after I spent a wonderful two days with our beloved former babysitter who is now a mother with two children of her own and a full life in Harrisburg, PA. And there was the moment over Thanksgiving at the Grand Canyon when I began to wonder about life post-Blue Car Road Trip. I wrote, “Am I the Blue Car? Is the Blue Car me? Thinking about how easy it has been to drive and explore, how natural this all feels. What will it all look like when I am home?”
In the course of 3-1/2 months, I wrote more in that little book than I had in years. I have had a series of these Moleskin journals over the course of three decades and start a fresh one when the current one is filled. Sometimes it takes me years to complete a book but on my road trip, those pages filled up fast. And when I read through my journal, the moments come flooding back and I am inspired all over again.
So why does this book, which is small enough to come with me everywhere, get mostly ignored in my day-to-day life except for odd jottings of reminders and book and movie recommendations? The same can be asked of my camera. It was in my hands every single day. My camera was an extension of myself, my way of being in the world that was about really looking and noticing things and a desire to be creative and have a bit of compositional fun. When I am home, that camera sometimes sits on the shelf for weeks at a time.
It seems a pretty simple answer to me. The practical matters that fill my day-to-day life take precedence and it is all too easy to push aside the creative, the exploratory, the fresh and the new. I suspect it is the same for many people unless they are artists or writers or other full-time creatives – the mundane and the routine become ingrained. When we travel, we are outside our routines, our environment, and sometimes our comfort zone. Last fall, my Blue Car road trip blew it all wide open: there wasn’t even a semblance of my usual daily patterns and routines. The trip released me from the habitual and I was breaking down ingrained habits and building up something new. It was good timing now that I am an emptynester and also rethinking my career and goals. I was using my writing and photography to hold on to, and process, all I was soaking up and experiencing. Looking back at my journal notes I am astonished at some of the things I wrote…where did it all come from? If I hadn’t captured that in the moment it may have been gone forever…buried under the days and miles. My personal little environment in the Blue Car, without work and home responsibilities, allowed me to ignore the distractions that work against the best of my creative and connective processes.
This was one of the most magical aspects of my trip. Yes, I loved driving the Blue Car on the open roads, back roads, and everything in between. I loved visiting seven national parks and 26 states. But right up there with all of that? I loved the way my whole being was alive and wide open to the newness of it all and how I thrived on that. I loved the creative tidal wave that let loose over and within me. And how, as the weeks progressed, I started making more and more connections between the things I was seeing and experiencing and my own life, goals, and interests–connections to my life at home and the life I want to live. That exhibit on paper folding and books at Open Book 2.0 in Minneapolis? I was infused with excitement, thinking of ways I might represent this road trip…using photos and writing, in one-of-a-kind handmade books and pamphlets. Ways I might incorporate unique folding and even origami into how I present my travels. That Smoked Old Fashioned at Sierra Mar in Big Sur during sunset cocktails before dinner, looking out at the Pacific Ocean? It was an inspiration to sign up for a cocktail-making course now that I am back home. That photo tour in Grand Teton? I am just about to embark on a Yellowstone winter wildlife photo trip…I just can’t get enough.
These are all tangible examples of ideas that have traveled back home with me, but the big answer to “What are you going to do now?” is less about actually doing…where I travel next, what my daily routine is like…and more about how I chose to be in the world. How I choose to be wide open. On my road trip, I thought about life, about my place in it, and bigger issues all the time. I wrote every day.
That way of being in the world was seductive. It was a special kind of magic that doesn’t necessarily need the Blue Car and a driving journey to hold on to (at least I fervently hope so). I was deeply engaged with the world; my journal and photo albums are filled to the brim with the adventure and freedom and joy of it all. I felt a bit like a child…the wonder that I remember from every new experience. From how large and exciting the world looked from my tiny perch in it all. Except it’s better now because I am not a newbie in this world. I am engaged and in the thick of it. And I have my experiences to ground me and give good context. While they may be fresh pages in my journal, I like to think there is invisible ink on each sheet…holding the stories and words of everything I have lived and done and learned.
That wide open magic is something I want to hold on to. That feeling that every day is special and that there is something new to see, to learn, to experience all the time. I know it is a tall order. But I don’t think the magic has to be about National Park sunrises and new scenery unfolding before me on the open road. I think the magic is simply about this wide open state of being which unlocks endless possibilities from everything that a single day holds…whether it be at home, at work, or on the road. That’s a very special kind of magic, and I think it is elusive. Already I feel myself slipping back into old routines and the camera has sat on the shelf for more days than I care to admit. I do know that writing will be a big part of it. Transcribing those voice notes recorded while driving for sure, but also writing about today. Relating it all to the here and now and the days ahead. And smiling at the possibilities in plain sight all the time (maybe while planning my next road trip with the Blue Car).
