Tomorrow, I’ll be heading “back home” to Rochester, NY, to visit family and old friends–some of whom served as the inspiration for the protagonists in The Eye-Dancers and The Singularity Wheel. It’s a visit I always look forward to. It’s good to see the old house where I was raised, to walk through the same rooms and hallways I did when I was growing up. It’s good to sit and chat and reminisce; to enjoy the company of people I’ve known and loved for my entire life; and to play Trivial Pursuit, my favorite board game, and a tradition every time I return home.
So when I arise bright and early tomorrow morning and hop in the car, I will look forward to arriving in Rochester later in the day. But that’s not the only thing. Because, as much as I want to get there, I also enjoy the getting there.
Indeed, there is an appreciation for the drive from my current home in the hills of east-central Vermont to my childhood home not far from the water’s edge of Lake Ontario. The drive itself comprises approximately 350 miles, one way–and takes just shy of seven hours. There are different routes I can take, especially once I cross the state line into New York. I can get on 87 South and whip down to Albany, and from there speed west on I-90 straight into Rochester. That’s the fastest way–all highway driving. It is also the route I will not take.
Sure, I’ll merge onto I-90 eventually, but not at Albany. No. Rather than zipping down to the state capital, I will instead travel first on Route 4 and then Route 29, traveling through small towns like Whitehall, Hudson Falls, Fonda, and Herkimer–off-the-beaten-path places with weather-beaten houses and 19th-century storefronts and village greens, straddling the verdant valley of the Mohawk River or the easy, gentle path of the Erie Canal. The kinds of towns most motorists sail right through without a thought, eager to arrive somewhere else, somewhere bigger or glitzier and more represented in travel brochures.
But me? I like to linger. Not too long. I want to visit my family, after all, and there are still miles to go before I get there. But for a little while. I’ll pull into an empty lot or park along the shoulder of the road and take a ten-minute walk–perhaps down the Capra-esque Main Street or along the quiet sidewalk of a side street, appreciating the architecture of the century-old homes, breathing in the spring air, contemplating the aroma of flowers and newly sprung leaves. Or I’ll enter an establishment, a local shop as far removed from a chain store as possible. Maybe it’s a general store or an antique shop, or a restaurant with the town’s name emblazoned somewhere on the awning above the door. Even when I don’t get out of the car, I make sure to slow down, observe the surroundings, take note of the pedestrians and the signs and the banners flapping in the breeze.
I’m not sure why I’m drawn to these old, old little towns in eastern upstate New York. Maybe because there is a sad charm to them, a dignified sense of age and experience that, while not showy or ornate, commands a species of respect. Or maybe it’s just realizing that these towns, these way stations in the rural heart of the Empire State, are rich with history, with experiences. With ghosts. How many stories are contained within the town limits? What might the buildings and houses, some of them crumbling, in states of disrepair, say if they could speak? Or . . . maybe they can speak. Maybe you just need to stop for a moment, look beyond the peeling paint and the broken shingles, and listen.
This isn’t so different from a literary journey, either. How many times have we undertaken a novel or a memoir, or anything that requires us to write hundreds of pages, and bemoaned the pages yet left unwritten, the scenes yet left unrealized. “Only on page 57?” one might complain. “How am I going to finish? How can I get to the end?” It’s human nature, I suppose. We want to complete what we start. We want to beat our competitors. We want to get there.
As such, the words “The End” are two of the most fulfilling for any author. But . . . are they not also bittersweet? Because while you may have become tired of the never-ending work-in-progress, and longed for the beginning of a new project, a new novel, you have also spent hour upon hour, day upon day, week upon week, with your characters. And now–you are done. Finished. What once seemed a burden (“What will I do in the next chapter? How will Jennifer deal with that? Does George call her out in chapter 30 or not?”) now seems like a friend who’s left you, who’s gone across the globe, or the universe, to a faraway and inaccessible land.
In driving the seven hours to the old family home, or in writing a novel that carries on for months or even years, there will always be an ambition, a quest, a need to finish, to accomplish, to arrive. But while in the midst of it all, it’s a good idea to take a breath, forget about where you’re going, and instead experience where you are.
There is a joy in the journey.
Thanks so much for reading!
–Mike
Eye-Dancers 