A Journey

    She opened the car door and got in, placing the large coffee cup in the holder to her right.  She glances out the passenger side window and watches the sun sparkling through the leaves of the huge maple tree on the firehouse lawn next door.  A good omen, a good day for a road trip.  She starts the engine, thinking of this as the last time she'll ever be here, this gas station, this town, hopefully as this person.  Taking a deep  breath, with trepidation and hope in her heart, she slides the gearshift into drive, the clock glowing 7:32am, and pulls away from the life she's leaving behind for new adventures.  It'll be a long day of driving, the way vaguely familiar, as she's taken this same route 17 years before on a family vacation.   She knows where to stop, rest, eat refuel, and rejuvinate.  Her car loaded down with her most precious possessions, she pulls out of the parking lot and drives away without a backward glance.

    As road trips go, it was as uneventful as she could hope.  Traffic was light, the turnpike heading west almost empty, as she watches the mile markers increase, lost the radio station she's listened to for years, found a temporary one to listen to, to her exit.  She remembers the last time she'd driven this way.  How they'd argued over which exit was the right one, giving in and continuing on to the next one, only to turn around and backtrack when she was proven right.  She exited to fill up her tank and coffee cup, leaving the last one in the ladies room, and focusing on crossing that state line to a new life.  She has a few regrets of the life she's leaving behind, but she'd done the best she could.  There was great sadness at what she thought of as her failures, and worry for her son, who was staying behind and moving forward with his own life.  He had encouraged her to pursue a new life, and "don't worry, Mom, I'll be fine".  At this moment she felt frighteningly alone yet amazingly calm, as she knew she'd made the right choices.  Climbing back in the car, pulling onto the entrance ramp, she continues her journey.

    There it is.  the sign that indicates she's crossed the state line.  The sign that indicates she's no longer moving away from, but moving forward.  Welcome To Michigan!  If she wasn't on the expressway, she'd pull over and step out of the car, just to see if the ground felt any different, if there was welcome in the soil for her long awaited return. ::sigh::  That would have to wait for her next break.  Traffic has picked up now as she skirts the larger cities of lower Michigan, and commuters enter and exit with the smooth skill of daily trips along these roads.  She watches as the mile markers increase again, and wonders how they decide which end of the state to start at.  Are they all measured east to west? South to North?  And what if the highway cuts diagonally across the state? Does that make it look bigger than it is?  Okay she's getting punchy, it's time to take that break where she gets to set foot on the ground of home, in a broad sense, as she still has 150 or so miles to go.  As she sits in the restaurant and watches people come and go, she notices that they don't look any different, or sound that much different, yet feel a world away from the small town she'd left that morning.  She splurges on a hot fudge sundae and trades the coffee for iced tea as the afternoon heats up, and heads out on the final leg of her journey.

    At last, the sign for Exit 239!  It's been a long day.  She's watched the level fields of miles and miles of farmland, grow into the hills and forests of Northern Michigan.  A breeze blows the scent of pine into the car.  How she's missed that smell.  You know, the fresh fragrance when you first bring a fresh cut tree into the house at Christmas time.  As she looks to the right she sees the steep bank of the hill that they had to cut through when they built the expressway, taking most of the acreage of the farm where she grew up.  At the top are the white pines, that now, tower toward the sky.  She has a picture of herself standing next to those trees when she was 4 and they weren't much taller than she was.  Now, she truly feels like she's come home.  She flips on the turn signal, exits the expressway, and just stops at the intersection at the end of the off ramp for a few minutes as the thoughts and memories overwhelm her.  Home!

    It's 2:45pm and she's not expected till 4:30, so she's got some time to drive around and explore some of the sights and  memories of her youth.  Which way to go first?

    I'll save that for another entry.....

                                        ~Thanks For Stopping By~