Oh, mother, forgive me for starting off in this fashion, but... Shit is getting real now. I made one suggestion for a place I would like to travel when we throw our whole clan on wheels next year, and I was greeted in response with a set of Google turn-by-turn directions that covered a five thousand or so mile trek from here northward, and then going crossways from New Brunswick to Alaska. That made it suddenly more real to me, to see an actual route. I didn't know whether we had planned to pop into Canada at all, but here is a map stating outright that the man wants to spend months going from one end to the other of it. I have to admit, I find this quite intimidating. It's not like I've never left the country. I've lived abroad as a child, and I've made quick excursions to Canada, Mexico, France, and Great Britain since then. Nevertheless, I feel like I've allowed my horizons to shrink, and this really did frighten me to see at first. I thought about arguing with my man, trying to scale it down a bit. I've spent the last hour or so letting myself dither and panic just a little, and now I'm starting to breathe again. I find that I'm glad I didn't immediately write that email pushing back on the plan. If I let my fear of the unknown rule me, then this year of travel will be doomed from the start. Canada is not some lawless minefield, just waiting to chew me up and spit me out. There will be rugged countryside along the way, sure. But it will be gorgeous, with wonderful people, and I will be absolutely fine the whole trip. I'm not going to starve, I'm not going to freeze. In my defense, with my man behind the wheel, there will be several times when I'm hyperventilating at the driving conditions. In almost three decades together, there have been more terrifying mountain car trips than I can possibly count, with steep drop-offs that start right at the edge of the car, and roads that just crumble into rocky slopes of nothingness. I have lost my acrophobic shit sitting in the passenger seat, wishing I could jump out and run away from the motorized death box, so many times, it amazes me that I am still married to this man. But it will be to my advantage that we will be in a school bus turned RV, and most of the awful four-wheeling foolishness will be relegated to that silly jeep we will be towing, when I can bow out of being a passenger. I've come to terms with most of this plan in a very short time. Now, I need someone to reassure me that the part of this route that involves putting a school bus on a ferry will be okay. Because right now, I am not seeing it.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about thinking over the last few months. I figured out the right path to turn this blog into a long-format book, but I didn't just start writing it front to back. I designated a spiral notebook to be the secret keeper, and for two months I have been jotting down references to scenes I'd like to tell in detail. One or two sentences, or even just a catchphrase, and I made a list pages and pages long, that tells the whole story. I have been promising myself I would start soon to write it all out, but I still struggled with where to start. I finally figured out how to tackle it, where to start unraveling, and tonight, I grabbed a pen and got to work. Even after telling myself that it doesn't have to go in order, much as this blog jumps around from the present to the past to the future and back, I still thought I had to organize before I composed. What utter nonsense. I scanned the list of notes, and I told myself just pick one, put a number by it, and start writing. So finally I did. I chose something that looked small and easy, like the day in fifth grade when I debated with my social studies teacher in front of the class whether the death penalty was an appropriate punishment (at nine I already wasn't a fan of it, but that didn't mean he cut me any slack for being a sensitive little girl), and I thought I'd write a short paragraph, maybe six or seven sentences. I ended up writing all around it too, and in my scratchy, condensed note-taking handwriting (I have different styles for different purposes), I got a good page and a half. It felt almost too easy. So I went digging for another short memory, like the day my grandfather tried to prevent my boyfriend (now the guy I married) from going up to our cabin because of how his long hair offended my grandfather's old fashioned ideas about gender and fashion. The same thing happened, although I felt like that scene is a little abbreviated. I can't decide whether to attempt a third one tonight, but it felt good to finally start making my dreams become real that I might stay up late and do it. The cats are used to me leaving the lights on until three in the morning most nights, so they just deal with it. I've been thinking about doing this for so long. Now I'm actually doing it. I can't let my laziness or self-doubt stop me, even though I know it's going to be an uphill climb. I'm in motion now. I have to keep moving.
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