Southward Bound

So I've escaped to a beach for a week. There is a small (large) amount of work that has managed to come along with me in the car, but that’s just fine. Working at the beach is better than working not at the beach. Not working at the beach is the best permutation I can come up with, but isn’t really an option here. This is okay.

Dad is along for this journey as well, and while some of you have probably assumed that I left him for dead at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, no, he’s actually here. Speaking of which, I’m hoping that proximity to a horizon-topped body of water will actually focus and relax me enough to finish that story. There is a reasonable chance of this, but I’m all done making promises to the small fraction of human readers still out there.

Today was the day to drive south. I’ve driven south for vacations of the escape-the-soul-crushing-winter type quite a lot in my life, and there are a number of recurring themes. I’ll get to those in a minute, but first, let me give you, personally, a piece of advice:

Do not travel with me in 2008 until May, especially in a car. You should be safe between May and mid-October, but no promises. This winter, I am a god of snow, and whatever car I am in is the First and Most Glorious Holy Cathedral of the Pilgrimage to the Snow God. I am not, mind you, the cool kind of god who can control the snow, creating avalanches at a whim. Instead, i am the powerless martyred Saint brand of deity with whom snow is so infatuated that it must trek from miles around to worshipfully, joyfully, and massively be with him at all times. In the past five weeks leading up to today, I have been on the road to the tune of three journeys, each of roughly twelve hours round trip. Of the six one-way legs, five were substantially lengthened/made more terrifying due to blizzard-style driving conditions. There was often no snow in the interim, but as soon as I got back on the road, the flakes started falling. I haven’t decided if the worst was the black ice on the way to the job interview (twenty mph for an hour) or the near-total whiteout during the conclusion of the Super Bowl (forty mph for three hours). But you get the point. Snow likes me, especially when I’m in a car.

Dad, it seems, was not aware of my deity and its fervent following. When we jumped in the car at six this morning to head south, he was a little surprised at the size of the congregation filling the streets and surrounding air. An hour later, still moving at forty mph on the interstate and having trouble actually perceiving solid objects ahead of us, he started to get the picture. Two hours after that, still fishtailing along at forty, he began to have faith. When we saw that the northbound lanes were stopped because, no kidding, a snow plow had slid into a ditch and needed to be pulled out, he was ready to preach to the masses on my behalf.

But aside from those first four hours and the twenty-minute delay for a car fire (someone else’s car, not ours), it was a good day’s drive. In fact, the blizzard conditions made the drive south even more rewarding. A few thoughts this trek, which many of us have probably taken at some point in our lives:

First, the negative. The drive south (or any serious road trip, really) is in some small ways a study in the recurring failure of humanity to behave with any level of decorum or courtesy. Exhibit A in this argument: Gas station bathrooms. The less said about this the better, but it is worth noting that culpability here belongs not only to the users, but also to the owners, who know nothing of this new-fangled “mop” device that is sweeping the nation. Exhibit B: Humans piloting automobiles. This, obviously, is a topic for a much longer rant, and one that has been touched on here before, but after a day on the road one is reminded that the staggering number of annual highway deaths is in fact staggering because it is so very very tiny and does not in any way reflect the terrifyingly high ratio of drooling morons to competent drivers.

And now, a few of the positives:

No matter how much you like winter (and I enjoy the flipping heck out of it), it is a damn good force to escape now and then. Simply getting in the car and pointing the thing south is an act of empowerment, and a deeply refreshing turnabout from the passive, teeth-gritted, “Oh yeah? That all you got? I can take it!” defiance that characterizes the exhausted winter-dweller. Hope springs abundant on the southern horizon in March.

And if pointing the car south lifts you up a little bit, then finally breaking into that region where you realize, holy hell, there are actually leaves budding on the trees, is a veritable rocket ride to the moons of Saturn for your astronaut soul. The moment when the grass in the highway median suddenly looks like actual electric living grass rather than week-old fast food shredded lettuce feels like taking off a hairshirt. The sun comes out, the perma-slate cloud cover becomes a vague memory, and a short while later the words “lush” and “Spanish moss” emerge clumsily from your mouth, like dazed spelunkers lost for months below ground. You’re getting Spring in fast forward on the drive south. Prozac’s got nothing on this.

There really is no way to talk about the people in The South without clichés exploding from your brain-holes, but this doesn’t mean they’re not true: Friendly! Delightfully friendly! EVERYONE is friendly! Eye contact! Smiles! Folksy phrases like “you take y’all’s time”! And the accent! Charm my Yankee shorts off, whydoncha?

And last of all, if you’re driving south it probably means you’ll get there after dark. As your day has been filled with visions of the beach at sunset, this may feel disappointing, but don’t let it be. Unpack the car. Throw out the Mountain Dew bottles. Wash your face. Check out your lodgings. Take a deep breath. And then go walk down to the beach. Yes, I know, it’s dark and a crab may pinch your big toe, but go anyway. Standing on the edge of a body of water at night is lovely in an entirely different way than the daytime version, a way that is arguably more rewarding after a long drive. Walk to where the sand starts getting damp. Look up and marvel at the stars. Find the Pleiades. Listen to the waves. Stick your toe in the water. And then just gaze out into that darkness, to the horizon you can’t distinguish, at the invisible expanse of blackness. The visceral presence of that unseen body is strong. It reassures. It will be there in its vivid brilliance and peaceful bliss tomorrow morning, but for now it exists in a state of simple, understood power. This is what you came for.

Now go to bed, it’s been a long day.