Patience For the Ride

Travel days are often “lost days.” By that I mean that the effort and energy required to get from point to point often delivers a net loss in terms of value.

I actually spent two days traveling back to Maine after leaving my Airbnb location in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

Tuesday was a long day of driving, traffic snarls from DC north, and just plain gridlock in NYC as I hit the Big Apple at rush hour. Then, creeping northward into Connecticut, battling the worst drivers and driving I’d witnessed on the entire trip.

My goal on Wednesday was to get north of the city and I managed to do it, balky back and all. My back’s been fucked-up the entire trip. Any significant time in the seat was followed by excruciating pain upon exiting the driver’s position.

I wanted to stop-over in Providence and see Mark’s tree in front of the library on the Brown campus. I hadn’t seen the tree since its planting last fall.

The benefit of my marathon driving day on Wednesday is that I was in Providence at 8:00 a.m. and I had some time in that space remembering my son before things got busy. It was very emotional.

Mark’s tree at Brown.

The plague in front of John D. Rockefeller Library

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Travel Writing

[Leaving LA and Santa Monica]

Our time in California is coming to an end. We’ve been on the road for nearly two weeks, nearing the completion of a trip we felt compelled to take. We’re missing home a bit, even our cat, Lucy. Odd how our heartstrings pull at us.

This journey has been centered on Mark. Emotions Mary and I have been contending with in losing our only son don’t seem close to dissipating. Love doesn’t disappear just because someone we loved dies. Tears continue streaming, while the holes in both of our hearts remain (and will live there forever).

Time spent in Santa Monica and Los Angeles was beautiful. Seeing Gabi again was one of the highlights of our time in this magnificent state. When political types slag California either through ignorance or ideology, they know not what they are talking about. It’s hard to put into words what we’ve seen and experienced during this briefest of stays in a place that could just as easily be its own county if it wasn’t one of America’s most important states.

Checking out of our cottage near the beach, we began trekking up the Pacific Coast Highway last Monday. We stopped and watched an amazing group of surfers spend their morning catching and riding waves at Malibu Lagoon State Beach (also known as Surfrider Beach). Our morning in Malibu was close to perfect.

A surfer catching a wave in Malibu.

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