I Can Do Hard Things
Driving home from Nova Scotia to Michigan all alone, through unbelievable storms into bright sun.
There was something so comforting about being in my own car while I was away at the far reaches of this continent in July. The familiarity of the leather seat, the synergy with the controls and the automatic link to my phone and music. The comfort of careening along unfamiliar highways in a mobile setting so known to me as I laughed at the varying images of moose on warning signs along Canadian highways, read translations of English signage into French, Gaelic, Mi’kmaq.
I am a daughter of the Motor City, a child of speed demons. In Detroit, public transportation is not really an option, so controlled by the automotive industry was our town that even the houses built in the mid-20th century were fronted by bland two-car garages which obscured a perfect view of the architecture, the home. I am aware of the metaphor. I lived it. It runs through my blood, and that’s why, shamefully, my family of six pays all the costs associated with owning five vehicles.
But a motor vehicle brings independence to roam, to seek out immediate and pleasing adventures, and that’s why this monthlong writing sabbatical in Nova Scotia was so different (among many other reasons) from the monthlong writing sabbatical I took last year in Scotland. There, I rented a vehicle and learned to drive differently, learned a different landscape, and it gave me an independence and confidence that I appreciated, but which was wholly foreign to me.
This year, I started from home, and stayed in a piece of that home the whole time. The biggest challenge would be the journey back, 1,106 miles from Bar Harbor, Maine to Huntington Woods, Michigan. I did it, solo, last weekend, and I returned a different person from the one who left on July 1st.
You see, I’ve never been good at long drives without a companion. The vibration of the car lulled me to a sleep-state, and I worried about crashing into oncoming traffic or veering off the road. When I planned the sabbatical, I first assumed I would need a companion for the long ride home. But then, I thought, I can do hard things. I want to do hard things. And I banished the thought that I must have someone at my side to cover great distances.
So last Saturday morning, I drove onto the ferry in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. For three-and-a-half hours on open ocean, I sat in the lounge with two friends, listening to live music by a Canadian-Gaelic guitarist singing sea shanties and ballads about long and lonely nights on the seashore. I ate pizza, drank ginger ale, and when we docked in the sunshine of Bar Harbor, Maine, I coasted onto American soil, my throat choked by the unexpected emotion that comes with returning to one’s native land.
The first hours were easy. Down the coast of Maine into New Hampshire for a fleeting few miles then on to Massachusetts. Along interstate as the clouds darkened and the first drops smacked against the windshield. I kept going, stopping only when the gas got low or I needed a quick bathroom run.
New friends on the ferry had mentioned a coming storm. A Whooshening, they called it, a beautiful word whose meaning scared me but also challenged me to make haste. Severe storms would push across the Northeast, and I’d be wise to stop driving before they do, my friends cautioned.
But I am an independent, strong woman, and I don’t like other people telling me what to do. Do any of us, really? I was nervous, but the skies weren’t that scary, the rain fleeting. I wanted to get to Amherst, Massachusetts, to have fewer miles to drive the next day. Make some real progress toward home.
I turned off the interstate and onto mountain roads darkened by thick copses of full trees. This would be gorgeous, I bet, if only I had time to wander, to hike, to press into the trees, breathe in the scent of bark and soil, walk quietly under the fluttering leaves.
If only.
Twenty miles left. I pressed on as the rain started, light at first, then harder, then the windshield wipers were at full throttle and I still couldn’t see anything. I dialed my husband. “You have to talk me through this,” I said, hunched over the steering wheel.
I thought of the flood warnings, remembering the floods in Nova Scotia a week earlier, which carried four people to their deaths. I followed the mountain road up, up, knowing that what goes up, must come down, that I would have to descend into a valley of trees which might, or might not, be covered by water. Up again, then down. “I’m scared,” I cried to Dan. “I could die out here.”
“Pull over,” he urged, but there was nowhere to stop, nowhere but trees and winding roads, no houses, no businesses, no general store, no town. I kept going.
“If I pull over, I could be stuck, I could be swept away,” I said.
“You’ve got this,” he crooned, his voice calmer as mine rose.
Then, the line went dead. I had no signal. I was alone in the storm.
By the time I reached the town, the rain was lighter, though water did indeed lap across the road. I went slow, needing my vehicle to continue working, to get me all the way back. I reached the hotel, hoisted my backpack over a shoulder, and, shaking, made my way inside.
The next day, I woke at dawn to a beautiful sun-dappled day. Calmer. Cooler. The mountains which had been shrouded in darkness and angry storms the night prior were gloriously green. I hit the road early and found myself going, going, going until I pulled into my driveway that evening, nearly 11 hours of driving across America, the longest I have ever driven by myself.
I can do hard things.
We all can.
While it’s taken a week to recover from the intensity of the long journey, I feel closer to myself, more open in my heart, more capable, confident, content than ever before. I faced a challenge and made it through. I was uncomfortable, but I kept going. I was alone but supported.
I made it home.
(Kind of like writing a book, you might say.)
JULY BOOK GIVEAWAY WINNER
The latest winner of the monthly book giveaway is Georgia Roed. Thank you, Georgia for being a paid subscriber! She received Elizabeth Berg’s Escaping Into the Open.
As we ramp up to my book launch in September, I’ll give away TWO books in August and September to lucky winners among my paid subscribers. If you aren’t yet a paid subscriber, please consider doing so to qualify!
The August book giveaway will be Bernard Cornwell’s The Empty Throne and e. lockhart’s we were liars.
Paid subscribers are also invited to bimonthly live calls where I offer free Writing Coaching. The next one will take place Monday, August 28th at 2 p.m.!