Slowing Down Feels Like...

I felt the familiar arc of our driveway as I pulled up to the house on August 31st, after 27 days, 37 friends, and 4000 miles of the Epic Retirement Road Trip (ERRT).

Home again. But different. Why? How?

Flying down the interstate at 75 mph actually felt like slowing down. I listened to my liked songs on Spotify over and over - most of them 70s singer songwriters with a few 80s, 90s, and contemporary artists who all sound like 70s singer songwriters. This was the music of my parents. And recently, my son started discovering it without my help.

“Mom, do you know “America?”
Why yes, I do.

Watching the expanses of piney hills as I rolled up, down and through North Carolina, then Virginia, DC, and New York - to Judy Collins singing “Who Knows Where the Time Goes…” I thought of Amy Adams’ growing awareness in The Arrival that time doesn’t work like we think it does.

I had no lists. I woke in the mornings and searched “best trail running near me.”
I shared walks and meals with friends without a haunting urgency that I should be somewhere / doing something else.

I paid attention. To light. To the line where the sky met the land. To sound. To people.

Is this what slowing down feels like?

I admit that at times I also felt an odd sensation of what wasn’t there - like a ghost limb, but a ghost list. Shouldn’t I be doing something - else? (I was doing something).

Some of my friends will laugh at this - because they know that during this road trip, I wrote a draft of the national plan for expanding memory cafes. But that was it. I read 6 books. For pleasure. Pleasure.

I did karaoke for the first time.
I learned a new song on the guitar.
I canoed. And swam.
I wore a disco ball necklace a friend gave me to feel a little silly.
I talked for hours and hours with friends.
I made almond poppyseed bread and left it for my hosts.
I fell into conversations with strangers.
I sketched. When it felt right.
I bought a hat.

I am sinking my fingers into this new normal, this shedding of layers of doing. I am hoping that the sensation of the ghost list fades and that I rest with the knowledge that I know where the time has gone. It has gone back inside, settling into my breath as I run, into my laughter with friends, into swaying to music that always seems to return.

It’s good to be back.