Road Trip

The value of doing the thing that makes you happy, even if happy is the only reason you do it

Dear Writer,

I have this thing about road trips. I’m not what I would describe as a huge traveler. I don’t bop around worldwide. I’ve only been out of the U.S. for day trips to Mexico and Canada, and once I went to Spain with my high school Spanish class but still… not a traveler.

What I am is a mover.

Every five years or so, I get the itchies and I pack up and move to a new state. I have, so far, lived in New York, Ohio, Arizona, Alaska and, now, Colorado. New York has been a repeat, the place I bop back to for a few years between all the others. But, eventually, I find I just need to bounce.

But now… I think we’re in Colorado for good. Ian is not quite the big mover that I am, and his community of friends here has become also my community, and I love these people a lot. I think we’re here to stay. But since arriving here just twelve months ago, I have gone on road trips to:

Arizona (once);

Columbus (once);

Missouri (twice);

and now, Missouri, Columbus, and New York in one whirlwind trip.

That’s in one year, and that doesn’t include the road trip out to Colorado when we moved.

Wow.

The excuse this time to go was to see Alisa interview Neil at Woodstock Bookfest, but really… it was about a million other things as well. It was about the book—driving is wonderful for me creatively—and it was about seeing Kelly in Missouri and picking up my kid in Columbus and staying in my hometown and showing them where I grew up and where their grandparents lived and worked. And telling stories—I told them so many stories, things I’d never told them before because I don’t really like to talk about my childhood. But for a few days, it was like the version of myself that was contemporary to Sarah was hanging out, talking about her life, and letting her kid get to know her.

All in all, it was 26 hours of driving, each way, plus the tooling around town while we were there.

I loved it.

I mean… it got a little hairy there at the end when I was in Kansas… which is a state that never ends… and I just wanted to get home to Ian, but overall, this trip was about twelve amazing things I desperately needed all packed into 10 days and, in total, four thousand and five miles driven.

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I decided to take the road trip after doing the homework assigned by my Year of Writing Magically workshop leader… which is also me. I was supposed to look at my life and determine what things were draining my energy, and what things fed my energy. That was an eye-opener, and I realized that changing small habits… like not answering every text and email immediately when it comes in… can reap big dividends. But I also realized that there are things that feed my energy, and I needed to consider those as well.

And what feeds my energy?

Road trips.

There is something about driving…

...even across the interminable landscape of endless purgatorial Tr*** 2024-painted roadside shipping containers that is Kansas...¹

… that just opens up stories for me. I cracked open this book so much on this trip that I couldn’t believe it, even though I was utilizing all the tactics that I’ve been teaching, because I know they fucking work. I let myself be bored (Kansas) and I built a soundtrack and oh my god. It was like opening the creative floodgates.

Alisa had invited me to see her interview Neil some months ago, and I just couldn’t really justify the expense and the time and the… well… everything. But once I did my workshop homework, I realized that this one road trip would allow me to combine seeing Kelly, my eldest Sarah, and Alisa and Neil, all while staying in my hometown and showing it to my kid.

I decided to pull the trigger and do it anyway. Money will come, I’m sure, eventually. But this opportunity was only available now.

Despite the fact that we lived three hours away from my hometown for most of the time my kid was growing up, I’d never brought them there. I guess I thought they wouldn’t be interested. We stayed at the farm where my mother and I used to pick strawberries to make jam. I don’t have a lot of pleasant memories of my mother, so that one was really nice to share. Sarah and I tooled around town and drove past the house where I grew up and went to the pizza place where I had my first date…

… which is unchanged to the point where the dude who worked there in the 80s still worked there…

… and then before I knew it, I was telling all the old stories about high school and my best friend and the boy I was madly in love with and my kid was genuinely interested in it all.

While we were doing all this collapsing of time, we found a record player in the Airbnb… but, oddly enough, no records. The next day, we were in the next town over visiting with Alisa and Jean Michel (of Megabrain Comics in Rhinebeck, NY, the best comic book store in the world) we hopped into Oblong Books (if you’re ever there, say hi to Nicole and tell her Alisa’s friend Lani sent you) and bought a Leonard Cohen vinyl. That night, we played that vinyl album, allowing me to share with them a slice of my childhood that I would have never thought to show them.

We left the Leonard Cohen there for the next guests. There’s a crack in everything, baby. That’s how the Leonard Cohen gets in.

I’m terrible about taking pictures. I like to live the moment, rather than record it. But I’m glad I got it together enough to take this picture.

I drove them through the run of the Hudson Valley, sharing stories about all the places from my childhood, and then we went to Woodstock Bookfest where Alisa did an amazing job interviewing Neil and we got to hang out backstage after and chat with Neil and Alisa and Danny Vozzo.² Neil talked to Sarah a bit and hugged them before we left, which absolutely broke open my heart for this man. When you are talking to him, you feel like you're the only person in the world and that's because when he's talking to you, you genuinely are. He's not putting on a show; that's who this guy really is. Seeing him place that personal value on my kid, who hadn't met anyone famous before, made me love him even more than I already did.

Sarah and I decided that, while meeting famous people can be a mixed bag, if you have to meet only one, Neil Gaiman should be that famous person.

In the end, the trip was even more valuable in a million ways than I could have ever anticipated. The book opened up, I got to spend time with wonderful friends, and I got to show my kid where I grew up and the happy parts of my youth.

Worth every penny, every minute, every mile.

Everything,

L

1. Apologies to any Kansans out there, I’m sure living there is lovely, but driving through Kansas on I70 is a dreadful experience. Although, admittedly, really good for my writing. So I will be waving to y’all as I curse Kansas in the future, I’m sure.

2. Daniel Vozzo is a colorist from The Sandman comic book series that Alisa and I talk about on Endless, and when she introduced me I was so excited!