What transpired in these hours, over these days, that Todd and I spent lounging at my Mom's house? In a nutshell, maintenance. We caught up on uploading and editing pictures, we decompressed in front of the TV, or in the backyard, and revisiting the ideals and directions of what we're doing as much as we could. On the whole, we got a lot done in the sense that we did nothing at all. This, to me, is a fascinating idea that hits me like rearranging the furniture in a house designed by Escher. It makes complete sense as well as not at all.Todd and I had often waxed poetic and fantasized about the notions of plopping down and setting up some sort of permanent camp somewhere off in the woods for a week or secluded off somehow. This was to exist and be in our own Walden Woods so we could just go over things with out the thought of moving around anywhere and just relax, philosophize, yada, yada, yada. What didn't hit me over this weekend until Todd pointed it out was that was exactly what we were doing, just not in any sort of setting we'd envisioned in our over romanticized idea of being "intrepid adventurers". Truly gits in our own minds. We were secluded away, given the time to process everything that has happened so far and what it means, get up to snuff on relaying it to everyone, all while being well fed and comparatively pampered so logistics were no hindrance on thinking. This was all achieved in the exotic locale of... my mother's house.
You can see why it was a hard leap for me to make over this perception of an oasis. Just because I haven't made a D&D reference in a while, I would relate this to a pocket dimension where all the dangers and excitement are swept away for a certain period of time. This time is used to rebuild spells and rest up on hit points. That one was for you guys in Denver, you know where I'm talking about and there was no wacky jester fucking with me.
Back to reality, this was where we were at. Often through out that time we'd wonder what the hell we were doing now. As in my previous post, I was feeling a distance from the traveling almost immediately which floated a feeling in my head of wondering if I'd just given up. I knew consciously that I was still traveling, but in the comfort of my Mom's home, that I'm quite familiar with, it was hard to fuse it with being out in roughing it. As Wendie and Heather noted in the comments on that post, though, that was very good for me. I shouldn't be separating "travel life" from "real life"; its all real life. At all points in time that you are alive is real life, and that seems to be an extremely difficult thing to realize for many people. In fact, it was that point I was trying to articulate, but couldn't quite figure out.
What an aspect of that difficulty was has to do with an identity that Todd and I have been wrestling with since we set off from DC. This exploration is easy to allow us to see ourselves as these vast adventurers, and this has us wanting to hitch, wanting to walk every step, wanting to sleep out in the wilds of the side of the road. The fact of it is is that our interests in being out here is to delve into people, which includes ourselves, and see what it actually is out here on a very in depth level. None of that has anything to do with camping or hopping trains. On a base level, our interest is people watching, not becoming Indiana Jones. Its that we can do that the easiest by shedding as many comforts as possible to gain the freedom of movement to be where we need to be to learn that gives us the impression of being "intrepid adventurers" to ourselves and not mere students under a practical means for travel. This sticky identity battle is a surprising fight to have to shake in these first few months.
This idea was challenged by Monday. After being on the road for three weeks Todd began plans to travel home again. Shalain, his girlfriend, offered to get him home for a week while we were milling about "doing my business". It seemed like a ridiculous idea, but both of us took to it right off the bat. It made no sense for him to take a bus home again after having just taken a bus out here. Again, though, we revisited the idea of what is it we're doing here. I was here in Jersey and NYC visiting a host of friends and family that I felt a strong pull to reconnect with, even if for a brief visit. Pushing on to Massachusetts afterward was an extension of the same idea. More old friends and family to catch up on before I disappear for a long while in this exploration. Very little of that needed Todd hanging around bored wondering when we'd be getting to Michigan to finally get a move on past these obligations we wanted to do, but also wanted to get through to dive into the real meat of it all. Our parallel roads had swerved from each other and it made perfect sense for him to do what he needed to do while I did my thing.
By Tuesday everything was set in a new direction and our heads were starting to feel a bit clearer on things.
Click here for Todd's perspective.
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