That which comes after Chicago: arrivals and endings

I apologize for leaving readers stranded in Chicago with my last entry. Traffic, like that in the city, has been bad: the traffic of my life (new job, arrival "back east", commuting) has carried me off and I can't even speed up to myself.

So....to finish the story of the journey. In Chicago we stayed with the third triad of that old famous Lohman-Tillman-Wayman Rodale girls: dear Lovely Molly. She had a well-done 2nd story apartment in a picturesque part of Chicago, and she and her boyfriend, Gourmet Andrew, woke before us the next morning and bicycled out for bread and coffee to make us breakfast. Such generous, interesting and interested people, it was a pleasure to even have a short time with them.

After visiting Cheerful Jen and Lovely Molly, I saw that my friends and their boyfriends (good, wonderful men they are too) are on good and interesting paths. Nice apartments, good musicians, gourmet cooks: hospitable and generous and “grown-up.” This makes me proud to know them. And underlines how I am this rootless tumbleweed, and now without my own wonderful boy. My itinerant lifestyle I relish but seeing their lives makes me realize this comes at a price.

(anyway)

Mr. India and I have indeed arrived safely in upstate NY. We finished Chicago with expensive gourmet donuts (have to do something neighborhood yuppie in a trendy city like that--and they were worth it!) and padded around the free (brilliant notion) Chicago zoo. We spend the next night in Cleveland OH, gawking at the graveyard feel of the place. Wide roads lined with brick factories, all empty and boarded up, clear streets. The sun was setting golden through this skeletal city, and it highlighted the sad abandonment there but also gloried the greatness outside of humans: light, trees, sky, Time. Only a quarter of the population remains, compared with Cleveland's booming time.

A facebook connection had seen my call for hosts, and put me in touch with two recently-graduated Allegheny college students who had a house in Cleveland. I didn't remember them by name (they were freshman when I was senior-ing) but in their email they said they remembered me, "you were a god to us in those days."

But when we showed up on their porch with our bags, I did recognize their faces. They had prepared dinner for us; I was touched by their generosity. We sat on the floor on a mat (simple living does not require a dining room table) and munched salad and fresh bread with zatar, and reminisced about Allegheny. What made me completely gleeful and proud was to hear that the Food Rescue Project I had started (originally me biking downtown balancing brownies to the women's shelter, because I hated that they'd throw them out after that meeting) was something of quite an official thing now, and regularly collected leftovers from the dining halls and had groups of volunteers.

Our last day we drove through Ohio, Pennsylvania, and finally into upstate NY.  Final destination. The arrival was absolutely strange. All my other arrivals "home", "back east", have been the abrupt phase change of stepping off a plane. Flipping a switch between the New Life Elsewhere and the Old Familiar of my home place. But driving is so much more of a connection, I was actually surprised to find myself in upstate NY, that it was connected to Idaho and Seattle.

We'd had a magnificent trip, blessed by the generosity of friends and strangers, and knowing this was the last of our time with each other, bittersweet in its most concentrated sense. What a beautiful and dramatic way to end ourselves, though, by seeing a giant and diverse land together. We drove probably 44 hours, but never once did I feel bored or dread the driving, because he was with me. Mr. India is that good of company this way...a relaxing presence, and curious and observant. We often amused ourselves by discussing soil and water processes, now able to notice things in the land thanks to our recent studies. ("Have Soil Science degree. Will travel.")

If only we always could live like we're about to lose the one we love: there is so much presence and appreciation and respect and celebration. Living to the fullest when you know soon grieving and deprivation are coming.

Dropping him at the airport, to leave me, to go to his own life now, was the hardest goodbye I've ever had; seeing him there with his bags under the Departures awning I felt ill in my stomach and sick to my soul. But having known him, and stealing him for a little time, was absolutely precious and one of my greatest blessings.