Over That River, Through Those Woods (Thanksgiving Travel)

The day before Thanksgiving, I was driving my much-cherished tiny commute to work in Brookline and I had one of those odd and intense bursts of sense and memory triggered by association. They happen when you do a thing on the a particular day of the year that you have done on just about the same day in manyyears past. In this case, driving at Thanksgiving time.

Wednesday was one of those grey and wet November days.  After the red and gold leaves have fallen, only the faded pale ale of old grasses and reeds, the grey and sliver planes of pond and river, the dark curved stems and thin fingers of leafless trees. An inkbrush world. The holiday itself and the rest of this weekend have been that other kind of November day: pure blue sky and brief afternoon light, fading too quickly, leaving the senses confusedly protesting at being robbed of time.

Now my Thanksgiving week trips this year are brief--to a half day of work in Brookline on the eve of the holiday, to family in Lexington on the day itself, home to Roslindale. But for a long time for me, Thanksgiving was about journeys,  sometimes grey and stormy, sometimes in bright chill sunshine, always a holiday framed by time and distance.

There were the years with my then-husband: the years we made it up from Washington, DC to Boston to spend the holiday with my family. He loved driving and hated flying, so we'd get up in the navy blue pre-dawn in Washington, DC, start onto the road at 5 AM to beat the early rush hour. Roll across the Delaware Bridge at sunup with coffee in hand. By the time the sun got bright, we'd be in New Jersey, packed in among vast lines of barreling trucks and the great holiday flood of travellers in mortion. We'd have a packed lunch from the Korean Jewish deli in Adams Morgan, washed down with swallows of whiskey with slow intakes of joint and cigarette for dessert. We didn't do much planning besides jeans and sweaters and having a good stack of cassette tapes. Led Zepplin, Richard Feynman, David Bowie, the Smiths. Sometimes we stopped along the way to have get physical. I can't even remember what it was like, to not be able to go 12 hours without touching and affection. It sounds like a sappy joke.

There were the years after my marriage ended. I flew a couple of times, but the crowds were tense, the airports miserable, the flights unreliable.  After 9/11 and about a thousand factors made air travel in the US even more of a burden, I just began to drive by myself. And oddly, weirdly, I loved it.