Out the window, Vermont streamed away from us, the villages, verdant hills, vine covered factory shells gradually disappearing, to be replaced by the flatter and more peopled landscape of Massachusetts. It was not an improvement.

In 1968 Simon and Garfunkel produced the song America. In part, the lyrics say

Toss me a cigarette, I think there’s one in my raincoat
We smoked the last one an hour ago
So I looked at the scenery
She read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

Cathy, I’m lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping
And I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They’ve all come to look for America
All come to look for America

At the time, the song spoke to me although I felt a bit guilty about liking it after our high school speech teacher said that their (Simon and Garfunkel) songs had little value other than pandering to middle-class teenage angst. His comment only increased my already considerable acne covered, too short, geeky angst.

To a large extent he was right of course, but that does not obviate their underlying message: travel is about finding ourselves, it is about taking our internal search for understanding on the road. We travel to those places that for whatever reason, have meaning for us and hope, by gazing upon them, to understand that meaning more clearly and thereby to understand ourselves more clearly as well. The journey is NOT a metaphor for the interior journey, it is the journey. (This might be clearer if I had written in Sanskrit).

Sounds like bovine scatology I know, but I have a point that I’m getting to and yes this is exactly what my class lectures sounded like, so notes would be appreciated in case we happen to run into each other. So, here is the point. Every going to has a going away and with that going away there is reflection on the experience. So it was that we sat watching Vermont turn into Massachusetts, the quiet villages turn into developments with car shops and mini-malls. The seminar had been disappointing, but that green state with its sweet farms and rivers left an abiding impression. We are Oregonians to the bone, but Vermont was a place where we could live.

Mid-afternoon we steamed into Springfield, Mass. (Really, we didn’t steam because of course the engine was diesel, but it sounds awkward to say “we dieseled”). The station had charm only for persons who enjoy the look of 1960s “functionality”, an architectural design distinguished by its use of concrete, linoleum, and grey-toned, flat paint highlighted with red stripes designed specifically to preserve a dusky impression of every hand that had ever touched it. The paint was a favorite of budget administrators as its nature precluded the necessity of washing walls it coated. Ultimately to co-ordinate the look, floors and bathrooms were left unwashed as well. It was a look that became popular in bus and train stations across the country. Springfield was a pristine example.

We bided our time for three and a half hours waiting for a bus, because the rails were being worked on outside of Boston. Various travelers came and went. We did not. A short, dark haired woman remained also. She bore the attributes of an Easterner, chatting with whomever came within hearing distance, or wandering up to engage the ticket agents (two very obese young men who were evidently trainees being mentored by an African-American woman in the Amtrak version of a drill sergeants uniform). We were both aware of her and instinctively knew that we should not make eye contact. Eventually we decided to get a head-start on the trek to the street level and our bus. Lyd clarified the bus location with one of the trainees and we started down. We found the elevator outside and half a block down the tracks (did they really send disabled folks outside and down the tracks in a New England winter?). We located the bus stop and waited. And waited. It was only the bullet-proof glass dividing the service counter and my always calming influence that saved the chubby trainee from my wife’s fury when we were informed that he had neglected to tell her that the bus was an hour late.

Bus seats are not as elegant as trains’ and the air is compressed and recirculated. This ambiance was only enhanced by the “lady” electing to sit in front of us. She promptly keyed up her phone and began texting furiously. Eventually her hectic digital conversation tired her and she reclined her chair so she could continue texting in a horizontal position. This had the unfortunate consequence of placing her seat-back within four inches of Lydia’s face.

It is commonly held that the beginning of World War II was a direct result of the Japanese incursion into Chinese space during the Incident at the Marco Polo Bridge. So it was now. We had had a long, tiring, and often frustrating afternoon. I sensed her anger and took her hand.

It is a fact of our marriage that Lydia constantly surprises me with unexpected insights, clear understandings, and charity beyond anything I can generate. So it was now. She grimaced, made a rueful smile, shook her head, and sat back. In that brief moment, we made a journey and came away with a new understanding. I can only guess at what Lyd’s understanding was, but I found renewed appreciation for the complex and interesting person that my wife is.

We would move to seats vacated at the next stop.

It was raining when we got to Boston.

The Road