Are We There Yet?

Every journey has a story and every story has an arc. Meaning every story has a trajectory - a beginning, middle and end - not a wooden boat. Some journeys are short. A quick trip to the convenience store to grab some milk and bread. Some journeys are longer. I am thinking of the – “I decided I had done it all and started planning my accent to the top of Everest” – kind of story.

In December 1993, my much younger family embarked on our first summer pilgrimage to Muquodoboit Harbor, Nova Scotia from Ottawa, Ontario. It is a 1,500 KM voyage that we have completed over 20 times since that first trip. Thank you to my wife and children for being such great road-trippers. On this first trip in 1993, it was just three of us along for the ride. The little one was almost three years old and we knew we were about to torture her. So with much joint effort and earnest explanation, we described what was about to be the longest drive she could ever imagine. We told her to imagine a really long time and then double it, and then double it again. She listened in her little three year old listening way.

With the car loaded and all of us set, I asked one last time – “Is everyone ready?” and then we set off. Shortly before the highway, I pulled into the bank for some road money. As I parked the car and we hopped out, we heard from the back seat. The exclamation was a three-year old sarcastic interpretation of “That was nowhere near as long as you said it was going to be.” It still makes me giggle. Expectation is everything.

Journeys don’t always require distance but journeys always require time. Some people travel in place while others move. I think I am inclined towards the moving types of journeys because they have fixed distances. Knowing the exact location of the end helps me understand the story arc. I want to know that I am at the start, or in the middle, or nearing the end. It’s nice knowing where you are in the story. Aging has this effect of elongating the story arc as you travel. As a young man I had less of an understanding of what the trip would entail. Now as I age, I hope more and more that the middle is ahead of me.

A childhood friend of mine who passed a few years back used to remind me how spoiled we were. I miss his reminders. We grew up pampered he would say. We were taught to expect the trip to be long but to expect also that the road would lead to riches and fame. Private, boy’s boarding school in Ontario, Canada will have that effect on you. For those of us in the affluent west, we are bred to believe in our own ascension. The road goes up - up, up, up as far as you can see. No one warned us there would be dotcom crashes, housing market collapses, or any other failed attempts to reach the summit. Internet memes do encourage us to keep at it because the road to success is littered with failure. But it’s easy to detach and view the message as intended for someone else.

My most recent long drive was on May 7, 2013. My Volkswagen Passat Wagon, filled with all my clothes and electronics, departed Chicago under blue skies. Chicago to Ottawa is coincidentally about 1,500 KMs. Lakeshore Drive was quiet at 9:45 and for once I was sad there wasn’t more traffic to hold me up. It was hard saying goodbye to the city and all my friends. It never gets easy, yet I secretly know that I manufacture these moments. I have said so many goodbyes that were my own doing. I want you all to know that I have never run away from a destination. I have only ever been interested in running towards the new ones. Canada feels so good right now and opportunity lays ahead.

Watching Chris Hadfield do his thing through the first half of 2013 has been inspiring. I will spare you all his travel stats but his story arc leaves the bonds of earth’s gravity, circles the earth thousands of times and then plummets back into Kazakhstan. Commander Hadfield’s return to earth has been nicely timed with the launch of media surrounding the Mars One Mission. Maybe that worked the other way. Mars One seized some of Hatdfield’s space inspiration. Just so it’s clear, this blog entry is my application for a 1-way trip to Mars. As for Hadfield, if anyone is “There yet?” He is.

This summer, the family will make the annual 15 hour pilgrimage to Nova Scotia. I look forward to seeing the beach grass blowing in the wind, snacking at the clam shack, swimming in the brackish water of the river in the backyard and chatting lazily on the sun porch. The journey always seems to come to a full stop for those few days a Nanny’s house every year. I can’t wait.