The Highway as the Path

With precision that was really freaky, I pulled into my driveway in San Francisco with the clock in the exact position it had two Fridays before when I pulled out of my driveway in Maine. I had gone the distance. It included breath biting moments of stomach churning panic, most memorably in the sleet and high winds both outside Chicago and just inside Colorado when I needed to get around speeding double barreled semis whose rear trucks could not stop fishtailing. Also hairy moments when the gas tank icon  flashed and not one sign of civilization beckoned over the horizon. But mostly the zigzag 3,500 mile crossing from sea to shining sea was flawless: no car break-in or vandalism, no speeding ticket, no fender bender or call to AAA, no soul scorching drive across the vast emptiness with Jesus signs that is Kansas. Nebraska was far less mind numbing. Instead of Jesus billboards, it offered rest stops with toilets.

The beauty of a home run like this is never having to go through an airport. Still, as the French say, "il faut soufrire pour la beauté." Even before I pulled out of my driveway, every cell of me dreaded crossing the interior of this massive continent knowing it involves crossing menacingly long, scary swaths of twilight zone with nobody out there. Nothing warm, cozy, familiar or inviting. No fresh food or good coffee. Just eerie desert emptiness garnished with an occasional battered pickup truck or Gas'n'Go whose idea of sustenance is every kind of chip, soda and candy in existence. 

America's flat out soulless stretches can make a woman afraid, very afraid not just of car trouble and foul food, but terrified to the core of all variations of lonesome road macho and that unique American version of highway robbery known as civil forfeiture. (Read all about it.) That terrified me when one remote highway in Nebraska suddenly sank from a 70 to a 60 mph speed limit, because I was convinced  I was in a cop trap. Any minute my car and all my things packed in it were going to be confiscated by a nasty predator in police clothes.  What to do? Stay at 70 praying hard to get out of there, or slow way down and sit in the car worrying--and waiting for a toilet-- longer?

I get why we call this alien world a flyover zone. I tried flying through it in my car. Truth told, I am a speed demon, a daredevil hellbent on exceeding limits. The sign says: 70; I say: ok 79. You'd think I'd be zooming through Samsara toward Nirvana the way I charge to appointments, parties and provisioning, determined to get where I am going and get going. I am a notoriously impatient driver who has made passengers scream in panic.  On this trip, I sometimes scared the hell out of myself, like when I discovered I was hurtling over the flat brown wasteland called Nevada between 95 and 100 mph.

I like believing my good luck in never being stopped, hit, robbed, waylaid or wetting my pants before I saw a restroom sign means the Force was with me. I like believing it rode sidesaddle to protect me because I chose to start this journey with a karmic reboot: a weekend of teaching and prayers at the monastery in Woodstock. There I was surrounded by dozens of people aged and teen, male and female, manicured and not, Indian and African and Chinese, who like me had driven for hours to get there and get from a visiting Rinpoche more of the Buddha's prescription for eradicating unhappiness. In the dining hall, I met an astonishingly well read, retired teacher from west of Toronto (a seven-hour drive); an every weekend Dharma teaching somewhere Chinese-American who drove five hours from the DC Beltway; a stately tall, gray haired woman from Boston's north shore, and an art history sylph from Vassar who had stubbornly dedicated five years to her dream project: combining her two passions into an about to open special exhibit featuring representations of Chenrezig/Avalokiteshvara/Kwan Yin, the great pan Asian deity of compassion.

The monastery experience of sacred outlook and shared aspiration for the secret of happiness fixed my focus for the rest of the journey. I kept noticing how everyone I came across was groping in their blind way away from discontent toward their illusion of happiness. It wasn't just silly me pushing myself through a grueling road trip because I feel insanely happy in Maine except in winter when my health gets threatened so I have to get out. There was the bony, middle-aged waitress at the farm to table bistro in Reno who, hearing I'd just driven over 3,000 to eat that wood grilled cauliflower, confided she'd moved there only a month ago to get out of Seattle's endless rain. "Finally, sun!" she said, turning her face toward the sky.  I smiled knowingly at the retired military officer in Colorado who was putting aside his Corvette and packing up his Airstream to spend time in Death Valley.

Then there was the Lake Michigan BnB owner who posted rules everywhere to regiment her guests' behavior to her liking. Guests were only allowed to arrive between 4 and 6 PM. Breakfast was served only at 9 AM and was what she chose to prepare--even when I couldn't eat most of it. Nothing was without a rule. The small bathroom sink had two posted: "Don't use the dark towels if you use cosmetics or toothpaste that contains peroxide." "Don't use the white towels when washing off makeup or lipstick."  I would have had to stay an extra day just to read every sign she'd put up.

A lone woman traveling long distance, a stranger in a strange land (how else would you feel when in Nebraska Caesar salad means iceberg lettuce with tomatoes, cucumbers and packaged croutons?), actually relies on the kindness of strangers. At almost every restaurant dinner, empathy translated into extra good service. The young waiter at an airport Doubletree Hotel Restaurant was so pleased I liked the roasted red pepper soup, he brought me a huge chocolate chip cookie. The chef/owner of a Midwest farm to table restaurant came out of the kitchen to sit with me after his waiter told him how amazed he was I knew the Robouchon potatoes were named for famed French chef Joel Robouchon.

The young woman in a silly pigtail Halloween costume behind the front desk of a downtown Des Moines hotel was so moved when I told her how back achy and weary I was after a 7 hour drive, and why i won't eat roadstop food, she left a gift bag of goodies at my door with this note: "I know you have had a long trip so we put together a little bag for you to have a good night and safe travels tomorrow."  The man with the pregnancy paunch standing in front of the elevator in Salt Lake City when I was going down to check out, asked if I'd had a good sleep. "Yes, thank you," I said. "Well that's good to hear," he said, "because making sure everyone in this hotel gets a good night's sleep is my job. I'm the engineer here. Is there anything I could help you with before you leave?" 

I caught myself reaching out to grasp at the one known in the middle of nowhere: voices on the radio. Twice or even three times a day, I frantically fiddled with the dial, desperate not to get cut off from my "friends."  "This is NPR news. I'm Lakshmi Singh." "I'm Robert Segal and I'm Audie Cornish."  "I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air." I listened to the same rerun of Car Talk twice in a row because I had to change stations at state lines. At night, I clung to my iPad, surfing from one familiar newspaper to another, trying to feel at home thousands of miles from it. 

I felt a little less alone. But of course I was totally alone, hurtling along mind numbing interstates, connected to nothing and no one, affecting no spin of the universe, not mattering a whit in any way. Funny enough, that's exactly how the Buddha described reality for every one of us: all lone strangers, nomads blinding wandering the path to death by chasing our delusions.   

Midway through my 3,500 miles of driving, I began to realize road signage is actually an expression of politeness, a basic decency. Road signs are a guide to the unfamiliar. You don't realize how crucial this kindness of strangers is until you are at an intersection or off ramp and don't know where to go. Iowa showed especially great compassion with bright, simple signs almost everywhere for just about everything including how far you had to keep going downtown to get to the interstate. It was profound comfort to find somebody cared whether or not I got where I wanted to go. It was epithet deleted road rage to be in Colorado, the Rhett Butler state that frankly doesn't give a damn. Colorado can't be bothered posting detour directions at temporarily closed highway ramps, of which there were at least a half dozen. Perhaps even nastier, it posts signs for interstate rest areas and off-ramps just after you have passed them.

In spite of Colorado, I got where I was going, on time and without obstacle. Of course that was a happiness, yes indeed, until I came inside and put my altar back in place. That's when I realized my long, lonely fear strewn journey between two delineated points wasn't just a momentary car trip. How fast I flew down highways to get to the other side of the country; how slowly I poke along the Path to get to enlightenment. What a huge Yikes!




~Sandy Garson "Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
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