On the Road to Easton: Two Months at Home

We’re speeding towards Easton, Maine, to spend the weekend with Tiger’s family in my new car Marg. The sun is setting over Katahdin, my favorite mountain in the world, and the light on these trees I know so well is fading from golden to gray as the sky dims as if on a slow-moving switch. All is right with the world, and the world feels both very small and close, like this car is the only thing there is, the four of us crammed in among our road snacks and dreams of the weekend, and very far away, on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, in lives so far away they’ll never intersect with ours as we speed east. 

It is impossible to sum up these past two months, and I won’t try. I have seen and done nearly everything I love and missed deeply about my life–spent early mornings jumping into the pond, drank milkshakes on perfect golden afternoons with the windows down, watched the sun rise while floating on islands as lobster boats chug by, drank beer with my friends in my barn, driven fast on the roads I know best, braking hard for jars of roadside flowers, eaten fried fish and lobster with my hands on salt-softened docks, ridden on countless boats, danced late in the night to live music, paddled through spray between pine-covered shores, read countless pages while sitting on warm rocks, seen the light change underwater in the pond as I dive down and come up for air, eaten and cooked delicious dinners, run through the woods chasing my dogs around my beloved trails, ridden my bike down big hills, explored intertidal zones, hugged my dogs, hugged my people. And I’ve done some exceptional things too, like running through the night with a rag tag team of family and friends, standing on top of mountain peaks, getting lost on logging roads as it seemed the whole world might have fallen away, reunited with brothers and family friends on a hilltop in Vermont, taken Tiger to NYC for the first time in seven years, acquired a new car and a new bike, led dozens of kids outside, and slept not very much.

Throughout this, I’ve felt more gratitude and presence than ever before, with the deep knowledge of how lucky I am to lead this life, and of how deeply I miss it when I am away. From where I sit now in early August, I am comfortable in this knowledge and simultaneously feeling some of the old anxieties of my life creeping back in– what next? Where’s my routine? What classes will I take this fall? What about after that?

But first, to back up to those first weeks, the only word I can use to describe them is surreal. I kept finding myself staring at the waving trees, the million shades of green so unique to this corner of the world, completely in awe, completely in denial of where my feet stood, feeling a million miles away and like maybe none of it happened at all. It felt like the smell of my mom’s cooking, the feeling of hugging my dogs, reuniting with friends, seeing people from high school while shopping in Hannaford’s, it was all only a dream, an apparition. It took a long time for my mind to catch up to my body, and in hindsight I wish I had taken more time to be still and soak it all in. I did, though, in little bits every day where I’d stare at a treeline in the breeze, take ten deep breaths floating in water, sob crying while driving my favorite back roads for the first time in forever. The feeling was so apparent in my first few milkshakes back (THEY JUST DON’T MAKE ‘EM LIKE THIS ANYWHERE ELSE), in those days where the early June, still cool, silky pond water felt unfathomably perfect, when I felt sure the whole world had ended while I was away and was shocked to find that everything had stayed in the same place.

This paradox was at the center of my feelings of surrealness. Everything felt brand-new, like I had never been there before, and at the same time so familiar that time collapsed in on itself. I often thought of Ursula LeGuin’s words: “You can go home again… so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been”. That was precisely how I felt, that I had never been in this new place, or perhaps, that I’d never been who I am now in this place. Time folded in such that catching up with friends about my year felt insurmountable, and it was often easier to talk about them, to under-share about my experiences because otherwise it almost felt too big to comprehend, too big to discuss in our pond-side catchups, our family-style dinners. 

At first this upset me a little bit, in that I do feel quite different now and it has been hard to share that with friends and family in the way I’d like to, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s hard for me and for them to navigate this settling-back-in era. Now I just tell all the stories I want to tell anyways, unprompted, and if my friends can’t figure out how to ask me about the structure of my programs, my greatest joys or biggest challenges, so be it. 

After a few weeks, the surrealness faded, in large part I think because of work. For two weeks of this summer, my life consisted of island camping and sea kayaking, reading on flat rocks and jumping into the ocean. Cooking over a camp stove, falling asleep to the sound of diving terns, waking up to the sound of lobster boats. These weeks have been the slowest part of my summer, the only days where I’ve been forced to not pull myself in every possible direction, days where I’ve had all the time in the world to take a deep breath. During my two weeks on the islands my life was governed by the rhythms of waves and kids, with ample time for gazing at the algae at my feet and sky above my head, soaking it in, being here. These days helped break down that feeling that I was still far away because of how visceral it all felt, the mud beneath my toes, the dried salt on my palms, an island sunrise, a seal bobbing alongside my kayak. It is impossible to be somewhere else when you are truly, deeply amidst the world.

Although it has been arguably the busiest summer of my life, it has been by far the most present. I feel I’ve been able to hold each moment in the palm of my hand, appreciate it for exactly what it is–precious, fleeting, much-anticipated, joyful–without overprescribing meaning to it. The enjoyment without the existentialism, oh how good it feels. I’ve experienced none of the comedown I expected from my year of adventures. Every day has felt like its own adventure, on smaller scales but with the same amount of joy, and more than anything, I’m okay taking some time off from scaling glaciers and living out of a minivan. Every day has truly been imbued with love and appreciation, time outside and time for connection. 

At Hearty Roots, we think about the clover model of developmental needs, in which a good day features satisfaction in all four leaves: reflection, connection, movement, and agency. I like to think about it this way: at the end of the day, can you say “yes” to all four of these questions?

• Did I move my body today?

• Did I make a decision today?

• Did I connect with someone else today?

• Did I make meaning/reflect today?

For me, as a bossy extrovert who loves to swim, spend time with friends, and journal at the end of the day, I can usually fulfill the clover model with ease. If I had to pick a leaf I wish I’d focused on more this summer, though, it would be the reflection mode. My life has been jam packed with movement and sunshine, laughter and intentionality, joy and gratitude. It has not, however, been filled with many moments, as Frances would say, with fewer outputs than inputs, moments without a book in hand or a headphone in an ear, time spent watching the landscapes and seeing what thoughts arise. I have found myself running without music, identifying plants as they pass in a slow blur beside me. Rooting myself, again. Reacquainting myself with the flora and fauna I love the most. Perhaps I am taking that space but not having the earth-shattering realizations I might have expected, about my year and its role in my life and my life as a whole. And that’s fine, too. Perhaps that would be too much to ask of myself in this time of overwhelming adjustment, back to the right side of the road and the salty gulls wheeling overhead. 

One piece I have realized I miss is the all-consuming element of my relationships these past semesters. My connection leaf was full to the brim for the last year, and nearly every decision I made was made in lock-step with some truly wonderful people with whom I got to deeply connect every minute of every day. It has been weird to step back into “normal” social patterns, where time together is more sporadic and often less free-flowing, where there aren’t a thousand inside jokes to fill the space. A loss, to be sure, but more like a sweet memory, something that can’t be replaced or replicated from my wonderful, magical year. 

It is a delight to be living an agency-filled life again, especially now with my sweet ride named Marg <3. Every decision in front of me feels delectable, like choosing between a late summer tomato salad or a ripe, tart blueberry pie. I am soaking it in, like right now, driving with loved ones new and old on our way to a weekend of connection amongst the potato fields. It feels pretty damn good to be home. It feels pretty damn good to be in this life. Cheers to that.