Playing in my heart

Listen to this post:

A long day all ‘round.

Just could not get out of the house and on the road. The kids’ first day home for summer. A sick friend needed an ear and another, a chat. The packing waited. 

The GPS was missing and I forgot the Google map, but I took the back way anyhow and, when lost, winged it, mostly. I do have a sense of direction, often bypassed with all of the high-tech toys. I like listening to my own voice rather than the GPS we not-so affectionately call blabber-mouth.

I took US Route 50 out of Milford to within a half hour of my condo destination, just south of Bloomington, IN. It’s funny how perceptions and realities shift when crossing a border – any border. Indiana just seems different than Ohio and, as I swayed along country roads, I tried to articulate why. This Hoosier state knows who it is and is comfortable in that skin. It’s the heartland of America, middle-of-the-road, crossroads, country, comfortable as a pair of faded jeans and unconcerned about appearances. There’s a consistency of life here: solid, small-town and what-you-see-is-what-you-get.

When I could get a radio station – my antenna broke long before I ever noticed – I had the choice of country or country. I settled on country and decided I could write my own song – about this trip.

I started and repeated, so I wouldn’t forget, then made a pit stop at McDonald’s, skipping the food to sit at a table and write the lyrics on the back of a gas receipt. I also used the video function on my camera, photographing the symbolic parked train parallel to the highway for a good distance. Upon playing it back, I realized the microphone was in the front, so I used just the audio. I think I have the beginnings of something:

A woman alone

got a journey to make,

Choosin’ the long way ‘round                  

with somethin’ to be found

Life’s been demanding,

but no reprimanding

The solitude calls from within her walls

Been singing her song for ever so long

But the ears can’t receive

what the heart has to grieve

Bit of dying happens ‘long this path

so something grows from the aftermath …

Not so terrible for a first song.

And the day was perfect Midwest summer: so hot it stifles your insides like steamy, unbaked cake batter and taps the memories of childhood when the heat was secondary. The day is open to playful possibilities.

The three-hour trip took five, but who’s counting? I only minded the 40-minute traffic jam around Lawrenceburg. Gave me time to wonder what, exactly, the casinos have done for the town … except snarl movement.

So NOW, I am here … alone and on retreat for a few days, Maybe I’ll be able to finish my song. [No promises of singing it, however!]

• How often do I recognize that the interruptions are part of the journey, maybe even the journey?

• When I do, what shift occurs within me?

• How can it turn a bother into a gift?

• What song is currently playing in my heart?

• What title can I give it?

Sweet rewards of reTREAT

Fourth day of a writing retreat and I am finally in the groove. It always takes a couple of days and I have been balancing the solitude and work with some treats and treks into town, which have taught me as much about myself as any retreat. For example:

• INDIANA hits a chord with me; one I never expected. It's middle-of-the-road, middle-of-the-country, not flashy or flamboyant. What you see is what you get. People here are who they are, be it the edgy college students or the farm folks sloshing into town for supplies. Whenever I jaunt into Bloomington, I pass Baker's Junction Railroad Museum, more like a rusty hobo camp still dressed in skeletons from its haunting season, and Ned Fleetwood's grander-than-life fiberglass animals – small giraffe, large giraffe, giraffe sideways on a crane, elephant, wide-mouthed bass, gorilla, buffalo and Pepto-Bismol pink pig – vying with the twisty road for my attention. Both make me smile and grateful to have to pass them.

• Exploring a COLLEGE TOWN transports me to my own coed days and the student experience that universally transcends time. Doesn't hurt that the IU campus is so very Gothic that I feel Professor Dumbledore will appear any minute. A  draft at the local dark bar and spin through the food coop preserve the flavor of memory.

• Stumbling into the ART MUSEUM with its unexpected Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Rembrandt, Monet, Pollock, Duchamp, Daumier, Henry Moore, Walker Evans, Ansel Adams and Max Beckman pieces was an inspiration to keep pushing my creative process no matter what the outcome in my lifetime.

• Meeting the self-proclaimed TOWN CONCIERGE and learning how the Dalai Lama's brother and Tibetan Cultural Center (as well as another that may be a cover for the Chinese government to keep tabs on the real one) landed in Bloomington was a grounding human connection during a time of silence, writing and imagining.

• Attending the local QUAKER MEETING, feeling called to minister about the importance of acknowledging shadow, even loving those dark and messy parts, and being told it touched another affirms the work I am undertaking and provided corporate accompaniment.

• Bending to NO ONE'S SCHEDULE and whims but my own creative call has negated a lot of guilt and freed energy for work, play and reflection.

• LIVING MORE SIMPLY with only the things I immediately need and not spending time and energy needlessly offers a pace and flow my mind, body and spirit relish and periodically require.

• BEING ALONE reinforces that I really do like myself, contrary to negative self-inflicted messages, and is an experience I will remember and draw on when I have episodes of self doubt.

Wow – all of this and also making progress on my book! Such a gift.

... that's it ... tapped out on queries and after notes because of the book-shaping process

Unwinding in the heartland

I had not expected that the journey to the friend’s condo where I am staying a week to write and “be” would have been so eventful and evocative. I had been warned that once I exited the highway, it would be scenic.

I am discovering that many of my recent pilgrimages have been to Indiana, the heartland, in an unconscious sort of way. I adore the countryside here. The Hoosier flair is distinct from that of the Buckeye. There’s more of a “homey”ness and charm. A simplicity and acceptance of a plainer, yet richer, life.

The first hour was about unwinding and remembering who I am. Just me. Not me and anybody else or their needs. Merely mine.

At the hour mark, I was retracing an old and painful path to a job I had over a decade ago at a casket company in the middle of Nowhere, IN. The stark, contemporary structure still stands again the farms and spires as it did then. The memory of spilling up the steps with the other clones every morning is as clear as a zombie movie. Like lemmings marching to their death in a mindless trance. For the first time, I encountered the glass ceiling. I drove 65 miles each way for three years and tapped that angst today. I’m still waiting to write: “Whose dream is it, anyway, to work at the casket company?” 

With a sigh, I passed Batesville and veered off the freeway a few exits later and immediately into farm country: extended barns collapsing into the road, muddy white peaked houses, laundry fluttering in the chilly sun and wonderfully snaking two-lane roads.

Until Columbus, IN, a contemporary architectural Midwest marvel I visited as a Girl Scout [the few years I wore a very constrictive uniform … never to be repeated] that had mesmerized me with the juxtaposition of soaring art rising above the cornfields.

More curves and I was breathless passing through very familiar territory: a state park and environs we frequented as kids; one of our family’s favorite haunts. I had not had time to study the route, so this leg was a gift of time travel. I took a quick detour through town and spotted the local restaurant still there, decades later, and the antique shop that used to boast a real-live skeleton in a coffin; a highlight for us kids. What is it with me, Indiana and death?

On toward Bloomington and the GPS rankled me, undermining the written directions I had from the gracious condo owner. It sent me the wrong way on a one-way street. Instant terror easily overcome by climbing the curb. Not to be repeated [hopefully].

Finally ending my journey in the woods overlooking a lake with nothing but me, my computer and book calling.

• What's my current journey?

• Am I taking the time to travel the scenic route?

• What's unraveling for me along this journey?

• What places is it touching in my memory?

• How is it shaping my future?

hurriedly leaving

slamming the trunk closed

and taking off

only aware of getting away

unprepared

for the beauty

of the journey

because, often,

the journey

is the destination

only we seem to forget