7 August 2010

After twenty-seven hours of driving and 1,545 miles, Mum and I reached our destination in Maine.

The first day we drove twelve hours from our house in north Alabama to Winchester, Virginia; the second day, eleven hours from Winchester to the Massachusetts/New Hampshire state line; the third, the rest of the way to this tiny coastal town in downeast Maine. The drive went smoothly with only two heavy downpours, a thirty-minute crawl on the Massachusetts turnpike, a bout of crawling through Friday evening Boston traffic on the 495 North, and a thirty-minute delay just outside of Chattanooga. We learned later that the delay in Tennessee—we sat still for thirty minutes before doing a U-turn in the middle of the interstate and driving the wrong direction up an exit ramp to take back roads around the delay—was because of a wreck. An eighteen-wheeler had run off the road, flipped down a ravine into a creek, and caught on fire. A witness had tried to pull the driver out but couldn’t, and the man driving the rig died. When I heard that Thursday night, I felt…guilty. Ungrateful. Ashamed. While I was impatiently studying the atlas and plotting alternate routes, a man was trapped upside down in a gorge less than one hundred feet from me burning to death.

That’s one of my biggest fears: burning to death. Actually, I have a lot of fears—perhaps the result of an excruciatingly overactive imagination—and I’m the type of person who gives something up when frightened. The best example I can think of is flying. I soloed an airplane before I ever drove a car by myself. I got my driver’s license and my student pilot’s license within weeks of each other. I’m not afraid of flying; I love heights; I was an exceptionally good pilot according to my flight instructor. But I didn’t like being in control. I realize that sounds pretty ridiculous coming from a control freak with OCD tendencies. I love neatness and order and control. But I couldn’t handle the feeling that I was holding my own life in my hands, that everything I was doing in the cockpit defied the very laws that hold us bound to this earth, that I had complete control over whether I lived or died. I realize that, in a sense, we have that control every day—we’re always walking the fine line between life and death—but alone, several thousand feet above the ground, with nothing but scraps of metal (or, in my favorite plane to fly—a 1947 Piper Cub—a few flimsy sheets of canary yellow canvas) between me and oblivion… Well, call me weak, but I eventually, regretfully walked away.

I suppose fear of failure is at the root, and I’ll admit that I’ve walked away from a lot of things in life fearing just that: something short of perfection. Have I mentioned I’m a perfectionist? And even though I’ve been anticipating this venture, doubts still plagued me. What if I suck at picking apples (I know, how hard can it be? But still…)? What if Tim and Leslie and I don’t get along and work well together? What if I’m not responsible enough to live on my own? What if this is just a foolhardy endeavor? What if this changes my life in such a way that I’m not ready for? What if something happens to my family while I’m on the opposite end of the country? What if Elizabeth needs me, if she misses me as much as I miss her already?

All of those doubts—I seem to have worrying down to an art—seemed to melt away as Mum and I drove down winding back roads, twisting through tall stands of pine, climbing and descending rolling hills, passing Robert Frost-esque stone fences. Then the road dropped down, we crossed an old bridge, and there it was… A rough, craggy promontory, water from the salt pond on the right spilling into the blue bay spreading out to our left, boats—their crisp sails hoisted and unfurled, catching their breath in the wind—yawing towards the sea, lobster pots baited and dropped. It was so breathtaking, so beautiful that to look at it was almost painful. It was everything I’d dreamed of, everything I thought only existed in my imagination.

view from the bridge

view from the bridge

Naskeag Point