“Which road are you coming from?” That’s all I need to know. It doesn’t matter which major road (and there are tons of them), I can get you to my mom’s house. Not only can I get you there, but I can get you there the quickest way possible if you tell me when you’re coming. That’s the way it should be with home: you should be able to get there as quickly as possible. I hate that I can’t just drive there spur of the moment, but it gives me peace to know I’ll always know the best way.

As homesick as I was when my mom and sister left, I quickly knew that something about this place, this small college in an even smaller Vermont town, was home. Booth 19. The month of July. Experimenting with sexuality, cigarettes, fashion and haircuts and colors, former limits and boundaries pushed with no parental grip nor repercussion. Trying on the identities we would take home. Friendships were fast, fierce and lasting; we kept in touch for years. I had never been as strong, free and willing to be myself as I was that summer. Leaving was harder than anything I’d experienced.

I hated the never ending presence of boyfriends, five feet away when I slept. Worse: when I woke in the morning and had to have awkward conversation with them. Creep around so as not to wake them. In my own room.

Home-relax-unpack-week-or-two-of-summer-pack-drive-to-Vermont.

I loved living in those white houses, with my single room and its hard wood floors. My job. That campus. That town. Something about being back there just recharged me. Made me whole. It was clear my connection to that small Vermont town still existed. My co-RAs and I bonded.

Single rooms makes for the best of friendships.

I spent the summer, post-Bennington, looking for an apartment in Brooklyn, falling more in love with the borough each day. The apartment was beautiful. I loved living there. Spent many afternoons with my mom at BAM, BMA, BBG. Had many crazy nights, parties where the pot was supplied by Jimmy the Jamaican Janitor. My apartment was Grand Central station but I loved the weekends alone, few of them as there were, the best. Getting up early, taking my time in the shower and over coffee, staying in if the weather was poor, or heading out to explore and people watch.

Her last night in Bennington I stayed over at Julia’s in Park Slope. We drank, talked, called a guy with apartments for rent in Bennington. He lived in Mexico but still called back; promised me a place. I moved a few days later; Julia moved back to Hawaii.

There I was: alone… in my apartment in Bennington – thinking the fact that it seemed when the going got rough, I found myself there.

That move, those years, started my healing and growth.

My life makes sense now; is healthy and complete… but I don’t doubt I’ll end up back in Bennington.

It happened quickly… I got the job, we found an apartment in Detroit and I’d be moving two weeks later. We spent a year in Detroit; right downtown. The ballpark, football field, RenCen… all within walking distance from an apartment that was the opposite of where we’d lived in Bennington. Stainless steel, wood polished to a high shine, huge windows. My mother loved the apartment but didn’t like Detroit because of the homeless… she thought they were far to assertive (after having a run in with one man outside of CVS). It takes living in Detroit to truly understand Detroit.

I knew as soon as I saw it, we would end up buying the house. We looked at many, but after seeing it second on our first day out with the realtor, we kept going back. And back. And back. Getting the “yes” from the homeowners yet another of many exciting moments we’ve shared the last few years.

The transition from house to home is an interesting one… as furniture and wedding gifts filled our house it slowly took on an identity… pictures hung, paint on the walls, table set.

I love waking up in it; coming home to it.

Last night as I sat with E. she asked me how I can do my job. “The late nights and early mornings… and the stress? I couldn’t do it.”

I explained my absolute love for what I do, and the fact that sure, sometimes there are killer days, but there’s also the fact that I make my own schedule and can make sure that after two killer days, I have an easy one. And that I can be home for dinner if I want.

Then I turned to her and said, “The only other career I’d consider is travel writer,”

Immediately after it came out of my mouth I realized the irony – I could never, as much as I might like to, be a travel writer. At least not if it involved going too far – I have terrible travel anxiety tat comes and goes, but when it comes, it’s bad. It began with 9/11 – my front row seat causing massive terror and a complete refusal to set foot anywhere near a plane. I’d drive anywhere – I didn’t care how far – but I wouldn’t even consider flying – and missed many trips and events because of this fear. And then it happened…

The call came the morning of my GeoCaching Event – I was going to Washington D.C. for the interview I was dying for. Somehow, this was the catalyst I needed to fly. And the morning, more than a month later, that I left for the interview was blue skies and light breezes, “A good day to fly.”

That experience led me to get over my fear of flying and began a stretch of over a year where I flew several times a month. Interviews, D.C. for training, home to visit New York. Pushed out of the tree by my own motivation.

As a child, all vacations were centered on my brother and what might keep him happy… entertained. Instead of teaching all three of us that sometimes we do things that different people want to do, we were stuck doing what John-John wanted to do, the entire time. Maria usually found some way out of these vacations. This caused John-John to become even more spoiled, me to hate my parents more than I already did, and me to convince myself that there was nothing positive about the word “vacation”. Luckily, this has changed.

Parents’ indulgences don’t only ruin the indulged child.

When living in Vermont, Kris and I traveled a bit… long weekend trips. Lake Placid, Newport, Burlington, we were good about getting in the car with our luggage and the dog and disappearing to go on an adventure. We’ve gotten lazy about that since moving to Michigan. Our trips now consist of going back home. But that will be fixed. We did go to Chicago once for a long weekend, to celebrate a year of being engaged and a year until the wedding. But now that the weather is warming our wanderlust is emerging and we’ve started planning. Stay tuned!

Last night I dreamt that I was travelling. I don’t really understand the details; it was on a plane. Marcy and Robin were there, and Robin’s husband, Jonathan. The plane seemed pretty large from the inside, but apparently we were following another plane, and when I looked at that one, it was small. We were flying really low in Chicago, and then suddenly making a pretty fast landing in Grand Rapids (do they even have an airport?). Jonathan was upset about something and Marcy’s hair was a pixie cut. The pilot did some weird trick moves around a statue’s legs.

I miss geocaching travels. Laura and I used to drive down to my mom’s on a Thursday or Friday afternoon, right after school (or sometimes randomly when one of us would say, “Hey, we should go to Long Island!” while playing cards or watching tv). We’d have packed our routes, cache pages, GPSrs and everything for the dog and spend the weekend (sometimes a whole week) waking up at 4 a.m., driving to PA or Jersey (or both), caching all day; driving home well past 10 pm and then logging our finds. Those were some of the best times ever.

The first Saturday of the month is Adventure Day! Yes, Adventure Day. A day when we have to go do something new… with or without other people. It all started in April of 2007 (I think) and has continued (sporadically) since. An auction, Detroit River Days, Rock Climbing, canoeing, checking out a nearby city, the film festival, a walking tour of Ann Arbor, vegan cooking class, Norman Rockwell @ the DIA… all of these are things we’ve done for Adventure Day. Of course there is always a meal included, the restaurant picked by the person who isn’t planning the activity.

And then there was that night when we got really drunk. I mean REALLY drunk. Drunk in that I-can’t-believe-neither-of-us-ended-up-in-the-hospital-or-dead-or-arrested-or-worse way. We were celebrating my birthday, dinner at Kashkaval followed by drinks at Mars2112. There was a boy I thought K would like. So L and I called him over. We taught his friends how to play “Spite & Malice”, he talked to K all night on the phone, L hooked up with a guy called “Shit”, I slept in my car before I could drive us home through a blizzard – my windshield wipers stopped working 5 minutes into the trip.

After driving through Canada. We sat in line for nearly an hour. Got to the booth and had the following conversation:

Border Patrol: Where are you going?
Nancy: Waterford
BP: Why?
N: I’m moving here to Michigan and I need to stay at my friend’s tonight until my apartment is ready tomorrow.
BP: You have a lot of stuff in your car.
N: Yeah, you know… moving here and whatnot.
BP: Where in Michigan are you going to be living… Waterford?
N: No, Detroit.
BP: How many guns do you have in the car?
N: Haha, none…
BP: Good luck!

We went to Philadelphia to visit my sister and do a few things for a her wedding. Our college baseball team was in Philly as well, for games against Villanova, which was only about ten minutes from Maria’s townhouse. We went to Bertucci’s with my sister and Jim one night, ordering a pitcher of wine for the table and getting pretty drunk. Then, because we had nothing better to do, we went through the hole in the fence to Haverford college, drank from a bottle of Absolute in the parking lot, and crashed a party. We may have used aliases.

Being nice, I loaned her my car to help her move from a friend’s couch in Manhattan to her own place in Brooklyn. She didn’t mention all the tickets she got. Months later, during lunch, someone told me my car was being towed. I had to take the subway and bus to some random corner of Brooklyn that was scarier than where I worked (scary enough!). Once I paid fees and got bitched at, I had to take a cab (no direct route via bus/subway) to get my car out of impound. I haven’t let anyone borrow a car since.

Walking down James Avenue with a black boombox, my cousin Susy and I listened to Tears for Fears, “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” playing on the local fm station. We were really into Tears For Fears that summer. Turning onto Hawthorne to walk toward 106 we switched off the music (some lame song came on next), sang “Head Over Heels”: my neighbors intrigued by us. I was a different kid the rest of the year, when Susy wasn’t around. We were just walking up to the deli to grab something to drink before spending the night at my mom’s.

Was it that we were allowed to go there, unsupervised, and spend a dollar and some change? Was it that it was so close to 106 (what we called a “highway” in Oyster Bay)? Whatever it was, many of my memories with friends, at various points in my life, revolve around the deli. That night, Susy and I grabbed what she called “pop” while still singing that song. Suddenly, we were hit with water – the boys behind the counter approved of our taste in music. Hours later we showed up home, soaked, laughing… nothing beat summer nights flirting with boys.

When I lived in Brooklyn I took two MTA buses on crappy days, and one on nice days. The longer leg of the trip (the one I had to take the bus for) was up Kings Highway (which should be King’s or Kings’ highway, but that’s for another topic). I always sat in the same spot and at least once a week he would also get on: The Elvis Impersonator. Mind you, this bus went into the heart of ghetto Brooklyn, and most riders reflected that… except for me and the Elvis Impersonator… happily riding our way to our destinations.

When we lived in Detroit our parking was underground. From the garage you walked through a tunnel, the up stairs arriving at the building’s basement elevator. With the nature of my work being what it is, it is truly rare that I don’t spend my drive home (at that time about 10-15 minutes depending on traffic) talking on the phone. Because it was a short ride, and because of aforementioned nature of said work, I often spent a ridiculous amount of time sitting in my car on the side of the road, staring longingly at the 13th floor of Kales.

I drive 35 minutes each way now. In the morning I listen to music and talk to Marcy. In the evening it’s work phone calls with musical interludes. During the day I drive a ridiculous amount, too, all over lovely Downriver… meetings, meetings, meetings. Because of all of this driving, I am far more prone to tickets. This annoys Kris. It especially annoys him now that I have to pay the Secretary of state $200 for them prolonging my probation. And our insurance went up $400/year. I feel like a teenager all over again, though I never got tickets then.

I hate being the passenger. I’m the driver. With this, I like driving other people’s cars. None of this makes sense, but I think it’s because I am in the car so much. I am so used to the way that I drive, my selection of stations set on the radio, my shortcuts, my excellent driving abilities (even with all the tickets, I’m a good driver, I just drive too fast). You’d think with all the driving I do I’d enjoy being the passenger. I’d rather not be in the car but if I have to be, I’d rather drive.

Up until moving to Ann Arbor I never had a long commute. Somers was a 10-15 minute drive (depending on traffic) or 20-25 minute ride on the bus. MAUMS, when I first started and we were at the old middle school, was fewer than five minutes to walk. Once we moved to the new middle school it was a seven to ten minute drive. From Detroit to my office was about 12 minutes, give or take, and now it’s 35. On a good day. My goal is to decrease my commute by a little. Carpenter Road? That would be fifteen.

As much as I absolutely love to drive, the subway is my favorite mode of travel. I know the New York subway like I know my way around my home. When we visit I prefer parking in Brooklyn and taking the subway. There is something about the subways and their different personalities. The N and R with its side seats only, leaving a huge open space. The Q (which will always be the D in my mind) with its above and below ground transport. Station performers, too hot platforms, station delays, knowing when to transfer. It’s a subculture to itself.

When visiting cities I love to check out their subways. Kris isn’t into this, as a matter of fact, I don’t know if we’ve done it when travelling together, but it’s always one of my favorite things to do. From D.C. with its circular routes and pulsing lights announcing the arrival of a train… a carpeted train, I might add… to Philly with its ghost-town stations and Chicago with its elevated tracks, I think subways are an unappreciated form of travel in pretty much every city except New York. Don’t say Detroit’s People Mover is a subway. I’ll kick you.

Sometimes I wish I could take a train to work; would never fly with my job. I could read, or listen to some music or write. Drink coffee, talk to the person across from me. Instead I drive in. Which is okay. I like to drive. But sometimes I think, especially in spring and summer, that it might nice to take the train – daydream while staring out the window, dozing with the sun on my face, soothed by the hum of electric tracks, the rocking motion…

Having an excuse not to talk on the phone – wouldn’t want to be rude!

I’m cheating, straying from our monthly topic (our = myself, Jenny, Lisa, Claire and possibly Aaron). Why? Because I always get so excited the last day of the month – when I click “submit” and know that I have, again, completed 100 words. Starting in April 2002 this has been one of my favorite websites, but up until December of 2008 I wasn’t able to write for more than a few months. Tomorrow is the start of the sixth consecutive batch I’ll write. Not sure where my motivation is coming from, but I think the aforementioned writers are definitely a source!