Normally, I fly.
In flying there are separate sections, there is sadness at leaving, peace in the midst of an airport, and joy at arrival. While all these things mix interchangeably, flying over the land there is a separation from the leaving and the coming, from the sadness and the joy.
This time, I drove.
In driving there was loss each second as I watched the landscape fade away into unfamiliar, re-familiar, darkness, and light. Every minute was filled with a goodbye: goodbye Riverside, goodbye California, goodbye heat, goodbye western mountains, goodbye, goodbye. And every minute was filled with hellos: hello snow, hello family, hello old friends, hello flat flat Midwest fields, hello, hello.
Everything was felt more deeply as we drove. Anticipation mounting over the 33 driving hours, sadness declining over each new state. And while the pain was greater, the joy was greater too. As if the two had made a bargain to replace each other with the same amount the other had left. Like the sun rise after a night with only a sliver of the moon, like the sudden downpour of rain after months of drought, like the height of a mountain after the depths of the valley. This is beauty, this is tranquility, this is the juxtaposition of life's ups and downs knocking all at once.
And as we drove I heard my tires say, "be whole, be whole, be whole" with each rotation. "Be whole" in the sadness, "be whole" in the joy. "Be whole" in the loss and in the gain. "Be whole" in the memories of the past and the hopes for the future.
"Be whole, be whole, be whole."
