Getting Away or Getting Back?

(suggested background music pairings:  Getaway, Earth Wind & Fire; Fly Away, Lenny Kravitz)

This past weekend, I was finally able to get away for a little bit to roam and explore. The weather was sunny, and warmer than it’s been in quite a while. On Saturday in particular, the only plan I had was to get out, so about 10AM, after eating breakfast, I hopped in the car and hit the road.

Now, I didn’t have any particular destination in mind. In fact, I didn’t even have a preferred direction in mind. Nor did I have a specific time frame in mind either. In fact, I had allowed myself the possibility of spending the night in a hotel if I ended up driving far enough that I would be too tired to drive all the way back – or if I discovered a place where I wanted to stay and explore a little more in depth. That ended up not happening (this time), but the possibility was definitely open. 

Living in Rochester NY, I really can’t go north – at least until they invent cars that double as boats. So I headed southwest, and after about 45 minutes in ended up in a rural county I hadn’t been in before. And for me, that’s saying something, because I go out and explore often. Being in a car out on the open road is my solitude, my element; I’ve written about this in general before and I’ll dive into this more later in this post.  

I kept driving west through the hills of NY’s Southern Tier, past farms where farmers were out plowing their fields getting ready for spring. I had to stop for gas in a small town, and the only station in town did not have pay-at-the-pump. My sister a couple weeks ago just commented how she drove up to a gas pump without pay-at-the-pump, and instead of dealing with the hassle of walking in, paying first, then filling up and possibly having to go back for change, she just drove to another station. I told her that I do the same thing! Except that in this case, I had no choice…the next town was 20 miles away and didn’t want to push it, just in case. Oh, and the town I was in, I didn’t have cell reception. 

(Side trip: I LOVE when I end up in a “time-warp” situation on a road trip; when I find someplace that hasn’t rushed to keep up with the ever-increasing pace of society. Little towns where people don’t text each other, and who can’t call their significant other from the supermarket to ask what else isn’t on the list. Back roads where people sitting on their porches wave hi at total strangers passing by on their way to somewhere. Or in my case, to nowhere. Being in places that are content in what they are remind me to be content with who I am. But I’ll dwell on this point another time.)

So, eventually I took a sharp left turn, literally, and then soon later a sharp U turn, and headed north and ended up driving through Buffalo and past Niagara Falls. At this point, I had been driving for about 4 hours and something triggered in my brain:  on another road trip some time ago, I had seen signs for Fort Niagara State Park. Since I enjoy history, I spontaneously decided to take another side trip there. Without going into details, I was pleasantly surprised there – the grounds were restored and kept up, there were people dressed up in period costumes, performing re-enactments, and I ended up spending about 90 minutes there walking around with my pamphlet, touring the grounds and buildings, immersed in the history of it all and taking tons of photographs.

 

When I was finished there, I still was 2 hours from home, but I decided to head back. There is a road that parallels the lake shore, at times literally right next to the lake, which I’ve driven before. It’s a scenic drive this time through the vineyards of the Niagara Wine Country, and through some small harbor towns. I decided, again spontaneously, to stop at another state park which has an old lighthouse. I had visited this park when I first moved up here in 2007 and hadn’t back since. I spent probably 30 minutes walking around there, again taking more photos before deciding to head home. Eight hours and 250 miles later, I ended up back home fully refreshed and back at peace with things.

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My last post was about the funk of apathy and self-criticism I had been going through, so getting out and roaming helped me get to where I feel fully refreshed and back at peace with things. BUT…that all wasn’t the main point of this post. A good friend (one of the two fellow bloggers that inspired me to start blogging) who knows I’ve been struggling asked me how my weekend went. In the days leading up to this weekend, I had told this friend that I felt like I needed to get away. So I replied that my weekend was great because I was able to get away and “shut my brain off.” Well, I got a surprise reply of concern, as in, “that’s not a good sign if you felt you had to turn off your brain.” It actually prompted a post on her blog:

"Red flags went up immediately, and I thought - We shouldn't have to shut off our brains to get by. If we're closing off our minds, how are we fine? And why are we burying ourselves, to create this illusion of peace and contentment?"

The entire premise in her post (http://lincolnsideup8.blogspot.com/2011/04/be-phoenix.html) in my opinion is very interesting, and pertains to something we all do at times, including myself. However, I think my over-simplified comment of “shut off my brain” ended up not being accurate. In reality, my weekend, my road trip wasn’t an exercise on shutting off my brain, it was a retreat for me and my brain – as I wrote above, my solitude.

In my opinion, we all need a place of solitude – a place where we can go to be totally ourselves, free from stress or criticism or pressure. For me, it happens to be in a car on the open road, exploring, with my music blaring and my camera at my side. My brain isn’t turned off, but instead I’m taking it all in, the scenery, mentally tracing where I am, where I may want to go, what may be interesting to photograph. Or I’m reflecting on some song lyrics, or air drumming on the steering wheel totally in tune with the music. I think everyone has their own place, whether it’s sitting on the beach reading a book, or sitting at home watching a good movie, or surrounded by family; whether it’s writing, playing sports, working out, etc – it’s a place where we feel real and alive and where we face our inner selves and like what we see. And it is my sincere hope that everyone knows what that place is, and that their place is relatively readily accessible, because sometimes it’s the only place we have. 

I believe part of my struggle this winter is that with the constant snow here, my place wasn’t accessible. Part of me being at peace now is that I’ve re-realized that even though there are stresses and pressures out there, there are also things I have to be thankful for. This may sound cliché-ish but it’s true for me; I have relative health, friends and family and my little guy, I’m making ends meet, barely, but still am. There are people I know close to me that are struggling in those areas, but I sincerely hope there are other positive things in their lives that they can point to, or that they can find their element when the world weighs down at it seems to do. 

Because that weighing down is my biggest issue. Without that escape, my mind eventually starts to become overwhelmed with the negativity and sorrow and bad news that we’re all surrounded by, and then my mind starts to cycle on it, thinking about it and obsessing over it and then I start to need an escape more and more. My friend’s blog goes into this too:

"Our brain power should be able to charge through the muck, weed out the bad, and dispose of it. If we neglect to encourage this process, the muck will grow and suffocate us. There's a point where extraneous litter builds to trash, and trash continues to pile, and piles become too overwhelming to sort through. Who wants to live in an intellectual and psychological dump? Who wants to be a pain and anxiety hoarder?"

As with driving in the mud, our brain should have the power to charge though, but sometimes the muck just bogs us down too much. It’s those times we need some form of help, or a reminder to help get us out and back on the road. And for me, literally, at those times, I have to head out on the road to get back on the road.

So, in reality, instead of saying to my friend that I had to get away from everything and “shut my brain off”, I really meant to say that I had to get back to being me and “reset my brain back on”.