Several days ago, Route 7, the two-lane highway I most often choose for my commute home from the Middlebury office, was undergoing construction. I’d scheduled appointments at my home office and left just enough time to arrive with a few minutes to spare. Any traffic delay could make me late, and so I chose the more scenic back roads. Morgan Horse Farm Road becomes Pearson Road that eventually turns into Green Street, which takes me into the small city of Vergennes where I only briefly have to use Route 7 into North Ferrisburgh and home.
I seek “smooth sailing,” but in so doing often court “rough seas.”
Vermont, the Green Mountain State, is known for its natural beauty, and the back-road commute through a portion of the Champlain Valley reinforces everything the tourist brochures trumpet about the state. To the west you can see the Adirondack Mountains, and to the east the Green Mountains, and in between Lake Champlain and the rich farmland of the Champlain Valley. Each time I drive along the three linked roads I marvel at the rural beauty, and wonder why I don’t travel this route more frequently. I’ve concluded that I resist the experience of calming solitude that occurs while crossing through corn fields and pastures occupied by cattle for the perceived efficiency of the more heavily traveled Route 7. And yet, both routes take the same commute time for me regardless of the season.
Though I tell myself that self- reflection will be in the passenger seat on either route—I trust and deny that in equal measure. Undoubtedly, the scenic drive stimulates deeper thinking.
I was approaching the one-lane bridge over Otter Creek on Morgan Horse Farm Road when my cell phone began to ping. I pulled over on the other side of the bridge for a brief conversation with my editor and friend, Herta. Prior to the call I’d been thinking about a recent visit from my brother and sister-in-law, a time that stirred family memories, including ones of love and brokenness, and for me, clumsiness in life choices. More on this in a minute. Herta, suggested (without knowing my thoughts) that I write about the bucolic state in which I live. “Good idea,” I said while holding onto my thoughts about bumbling and bungling inner world clumsiness.
I’m uncertain about what to do with the memories that spontaneously come to me, cause me to tear-up, make me wonder if I’ve misread yesterday’s quarrel, not been attentive enough, read, learned and listened enough, or induced the silence I hate when my soul seeks answers and fewer questions. But, truth is, I’m not as uncertain as I tell myself, I’m just clumsy in implementing necessary change.
I know I’m clumsy, make mistakes, trip over my “own feet,” “fall down the stairs,” and though I pick myself up to seek further answers from God and Freud, among others, they’re not forthcoming. Perhaps I’m old, I think, prone to age appropriate reflection. But I’ve always been reflective even when the reflections didn’t and don’t lead to better decision-making. Age brings both questions and resolve—but neither satisfy my quest for answers, nor quell the source of my occasional melancholy.
If you’d taken Route 7, been mired in traffic, I thought, you’d be less introspective. Open fields and natural beauty are conducive to meanderings of the soul.
The blue sky and bright sunlight brought joy as I crossed onto Pearson Road. A canopy of tree limbs laden with leaves provided intermittent shade and shadows. I continued to think of my clumsy spiritual life, how in and out I am in my beliefs about God. I was reminded of Chris Price’s lyrics in his song, “Clumsy.”
“…I get so clumsy, I get so foolish, I get so stupid, And then I feel so useless.”
I get it, Chris, I think?
Greatness never occurs without first stumbling, making mistakes, experiencing moments
of cumbersome incompetence, a
nd questioning of effort and usefulness. Greatness, if I may label it that, for me lies in accepting the journey as it evolves, and then living fully into it. Sometimes I’m on the rooftop, mingling with the distant stars and reaching out to a moon so close I can taste its “strawberry flavor.” Other times I miss the lush green leaves that have woven a canopy of shelter from the sun’s brilliance.
I think I’ll travel the back road more often, referred to in Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken.” In other words, “The road less traveled by and that,” I hope, will make “all the difference.”
by 
I’m wondering, if you’d taken Route 7, if you’d been less introspective and more anxious. That is to say, you’d be anxious if you were stopped by construction traffic people, and so it would seem the better route was the scenic one. I hate to be stopped when I’m in a rush. It causes so much unnecessary anxiety! Then again, I can be introspective any where I drive, since for me, it’s the activity of driving promoting the reflection, more than the environment.
Lydia,
Thanks for your comment. I try to avoid rushing, mostly unsuccessful in my attempts, but can find time to self-reflect in traffic, waiting for a train to pass, a tractor to turn off the road, or even (on occasion) cows to cross–and in each occurrence can feel the anxiety seeping into the situation until I find the humor in it.
Roger
Your musings about the road not taken, brought to my mind Jon Kabat-Zinn’s telling title about mindfulness meditation, “Wherever Go, There You Are.” Whichever route you drive, your soul-seeking self-reflection is in the seat beside you, and sometimes the more bucolic scene allows you to commune on your commute, while other times you must give your full attention to the distractions of the drive. Either way, your are living your own life as fully and as authentically as you can. Hopefully you will find the peacefulness of that truth, and acceptance of the yin and yang of all life. Last night, your fellow transplanted New Yorker to the verdant state of Vermont, inspired us all with his passion and classy commitment to living fully into his life on the road less traveled in order to help make our world a better place. Right on, Bernie, and write on, Roger!
Colette,
Thank you for commenting. I hope we all persevere as Bernie has been doing for decades–living authentically and fully into the “why” of who he is to inform the “what” of who he is.
roger