M and my trip to Vermont to visit our Grandchild was in our older son's car. I suppose he lent it to us for some reason other than him wanting me to drive like an old lunatic through the Green Mountains at speeds double my age. Maybe, approaching 50, he gets a kick out of giving Dad the keys and telling him to stay outa trouble and get Mom home at a respectable hour.
The reversals of life! Thirty plus years ago, he and his brother managed to have three car accidents. The last one was to my Citroen SM ... he bent the passenger side control arm ramming a curb ... disarming the sensibilities of my insurance company when they discovered that the only such control arm would have to be imported from New Zealand. Maybe my son still feels some guilt ... maybe I do for letting a twenty year old drive a Citroen Maserati?
Or maybe? Just maybe? He liked the idea of Mom and Dad having a workable GPS to guide them North and back South. And good thing, too. Heading back, the Leaf Lookers had loaded the roads. Millions of folk NEEDING to see the leaves change color before they drop. Old Folk going to see it before they drop? Any case ... Traffic stopped about 70 miles from the next junction. Inching along ... wondering why my left leg was called into this service of ... clutch ... clutch ... clutch ... and clutch, again.We gave up!
We boogeyed off the road into the back roads of NE Pennsylvania and back over to NJ ... over hill and dale ... always guided by Phyllis, the name we've given to the female voice of Sonny-Boy's GPS ... Omniscient Phyllis who knows all.
In any case, Phyllis has an expression that she quietly notes as she recalculates the route after her unruly passengers go their own way:
Follow the road.
We did ... and still ... When a 300 mile/5 hour trek morphs into a 380 mile/9.5 hour Road Rally, one has plenty of time to rehash old questions, like:
Why are M and I driving in a 500 horsepower beast?
Why does my husband need to roar by that Corvette LT-1?
Why not drive one of those
mid-Sixties hydropneumatic boats
that just float along in automatique?
Why isn't my husband stopping for Gas out here in the Boonies?
What if I don't stop and we really do run out of Gas in Backwoods NJ?
and, finally,
Just what DOES Phyllis mean by: Follow the Road?
Well, I don't rightly know the answer to any of the above questions but I do and we did fascinate about the last one, in particular. Fifty years of marriage ... Fifty years of Following the Road. I know there are folk who plan, plan and plan some more. And M and I must have done some planning in order to arrive at today. But mostly ... Phyllis has got it: We followed the Road. Life is something Mathematicians call a Stochastic Process ... a progression whereby decisions are made not necessarily with a known end in sight but rather by probabalistically making a decision on where it makes sense to go to next. No judgement ... No fault ... Just lookin' out the window as the road unfurls and choosing as best y'can.
One of the Good Brother Thomas Merton's prayers ... I suppose the one he's best known for ... begins:
My Lord I have no idea where I'm going.
and there's an ancient prayer that maybe expresses the pleasant surprise at having arrived at each seasonal holiday:
Blessed are you, God, King of the Universe,
Who has Kept us Vital,
Managed to Keep us Standing
and Helped us Arrive at this Moment.
שהחיינו וקיימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה
Just Follow the Road, Howard!
