Sometime in the fall of 2003, I felt a tightness in my chest, as though the air were thinner, harder to hold in my lungs. I’d just had my second baby and was lucky enough to be taking six months of maternity leave. I’d made the most of my summer, bringing the littles to lakes and spending time in the sun and the shade. But as the days turned shorter and the nights cooler, I felt panicky. It was as if Ned Stark himself were whispering to me.
So I did what any rational person would do. I declared I’d write a book about online support groups for moms. I loaded up my 1996 Ford Explorer with diaper bags and a playpen and hopefully enough toys to keep a toddler entertained as we headed off to the East Coast.
I took a circuitous route from Pennsylvania to New York to New Hampshire, visiting the moms from my Yahoo group in seven states and camping in their guest and living rooms in a desperate attempt to run away from the isolation that comes with cold weather and from my looming back-to-work date in December. And when that leg of the trip was over, I flew with the kids to Seattle, and we drove a rented minivan down the West Coast and over to Phoenix, visiting another half-dozen moms.
I never wrote the book. But hitting the road at that time—figuring out how to breastfeed in the back seat while parked at a Popeyes and dealing with preschooler tantrums (no kid wants to be in a car that long)—wore me out, like a good long run. I was grateful to get home. Driving thousands of miles was exactly what I needed to quiet the noise in my brain.
Winter is coming, and as we head into it in the midst of a global pandemic, I again feel that familiar tightness. I keep hearing Bob Dylan singing to me: “Put up your tent, McGuinn. You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
I don’t have any dramatic road trips planned. But if the air keeps feeling thinner, I may take off again like a migrating bird, searching for solace in another 2000-mile tour. And if you end up using a road trip as a way to escape the stasis of this pandemic, write us and let us know how it went.
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