For me, I will always associate any journey I make that is of any length with that of Odysseus, the man who managed to turn a routine night out with his friends into a 20 year sojourn away from all the things that mattered most in his life.  The Odyssey is probably my favorite book, and while I have only read it a few times, it seems to encompass all the things that are awesome: a road trip with friends, fighting for things that matter to you (both philosophically and politically), finding the value in being more clever than everyone else around you, telling fantastic stories to anyone and everyone who will listen, and most importantly, wanting to return to a place where you can take off your sandals, kill off all the people who are trying to move in on your woman, and wash up when you feel you are at your absolute grossest.

I don’t want to create the impression that I consider my own travels in life to be on par with that of a soldier returning home from war.  By comparison, at best, I could only be considered a Telemachus in the world of someone like Odysseus, if only because my own experiences on the road are so minor and short-term.  It is true that even the story of Telemachus is meant to parallel the larger journey his father is making – and by extension, we are all meant to measure our own attempts at travel against the grandfather of all journeys.  Still, I am apprehensive when I make comparisons between my experiences and those of a fictional character, mostly because I don’t want people to think that I consider my own life of the same caliber as one of the most important literary figures ever to appear in text.  Even if part of me feels like I’ve ripped off his formula for my own growth and experiences.

Yesterday, I returned from a week-long visit with family, during which I feel as if I came about as close as George Clooney did in O Brother, Where Art Thou?  There were obstacles to overcome, clashes with incredible foes (personal and public), a few good deeds done here and there, a few unrelated side journeys, meetings with friends and strangers, and in the end a return to my home and my girlfriend, where I was able to rest easily in my own bed again to make sense of everything that happened.

Any trip that involves family also involves a mixture of crazy feelings and emotions that are difficult to sort out.  As we age and grow in different ways, and follow different paths that put us further away from where we used to be, it is both easier and harder to deal with the realities that surround us.  Grandparents are closer to being gone, parents are closer to being teenagers again, teenagers are closer to being adults, and everyone is solidifying their personal philosophies in ways that are nearly impossible to say are even in the same ballpark anymore.  There is both sadness and joy mixed in with a maudlin consideration of mortality, and a simultaneous celebration of the potential that the future offers.

I was gone for a week, but the timing was prophetically unique.  My return to trip to PDX seemed to mark the physical close of Summer, and as I woke up to a cold and misty view outside my window, I felt with it a real and definite need for change, a desire to purge myself of bad habits and reaffirm what is and isn’t important.  I feel a renewed sense of purpose, a sense that I need to focus more on goals and productivity, and to eliminate hobbies that are no longer relevant.  I want to throw out all my crap in storage, grab my girlfriend by the hand and run headlong into the surf, to see what things we’ll find in the water, together, to reiterate the joy and confusion I feel in knowing this is what life is all about.

There is also a sort of sadness in all of this, because now more than ever I feel as if I have aged significantly.  Perhaps it is the fact that I have a partner to return to at all, something that was never the case for most of my life.  Or perhaps it was seeing my grandmother, who no longer seems to have any memory of anyone, look at me with complete confusion, and then ask for my address with a coy and romantic tone in her voice.  Or the conversation I had with my cousin’s teenage children, who all managed to rattle off a list of 50 bands I had never heard of in spite of the efforts I make to stay on top of new music.  Suddenly, there seems to be a certain kind of mortality creeping into my life, where no amount of detox or fresh fruit can reverse what is happening or what I’ve done to my body.

There are more grays this morning than there were a week ago.  One sweater doesn’t feel like its enough.

All of this is completely psychological, undoubtedly.  I know that my arm is not really in pain, nor do I need to see a doctor.  And yet when I looked at my brother’s surgery incision, with the staples holding his flesh in place, I can’t help but feel as if we are no longer young, that there are things that are gone and lost during our journeys in life that cannot be found no matter how much introspection I force upon myself.

And yet, I still felt good when I crossed the threshold and embraced my girlfriend in our kitchen with my spoils slung over my back.  As I threw out the garbage & recycling suitors that where trying to take over our home, it was almost as if the cycle had been completed, and I really had returned.  I may be older, in very real and measured ways, and I may have learned a few things here and there about life and how (and how not) to live it.  I know I haven’t yet given up the urge to travel; I am not home forever.  I may feel battle-scarred, but I know that I’m still young enough to appreciate the future ahead of me, while old enough to appreciate what I have now that I didn’t have then.

More than anything, I’m happy to know that at the end of the day, my own Penelope was here, waiting for me, knowing that I would return, and that through all her own trials in my absence, we are still hopelessly dedicated to each other in a way that puts a smile on my face and makes me want to return almost more than it make me want to leave.

This one’s for you, babe.

Now: I better catch up on my chores, fast, if I’m gonna have time to listen to all these records I found.

And: Hello Autumn.  Haven’t seen you in a while, have we?

On Labor Day, we were driving to meet some friends for a backyard BBQ, when we witnessed a pretty insane accident.  While I’ve been in one minor accident in High School (we skidded into a ditch, no one was hurt, and we still made it to class on time), and I’ve known people who were in pretty severe accidents, I’ve never witnessed one happening except in a movie.  It instantly made me realize – simultaneously – how desensitized I am to seeing them, and how completely blindsided I was by the event, emotionally.

The official news report is so boring as to make it seem completely inconsequential, so for the record, here is my account.  We were heading south on I-205 at about 4:30 PM.  We had some music on, and we were chatting about absolutely nothing of any importance.  Suddenly, at about where 205 crosses Division, an airborn truck from the northbound lane flipped over the median, landed, and began rolling on the left-side shoulder.  We were in the right lane, and by the time we fully processed what was going on, we were already past it.  We immediately pulled over to the right shoulder, along with most everyone else going southbound.

From our perspective, this looked like a fatal accident.  There was no way to know for sure without getting out of the car and investigating, and a number of other drivers were doing just that.  Part of me felt instantly awful, not just because I assumed that the people in the truck were dead, but because I was not among the people who lept out of their cars and ran to try and assist.  I immediately rationalized this by telling myself that there was nothing that I could have done; the accident had already happened, you can’t help people who are dead, and I have no training in First Aid or CPR, let alone the strength to lift heavy things.  Once we had confirmed that we were both okay, and managed to catch our breath, we slowly continued south, to go to the BBQ.

We were both stunned later to find out that, according to the report, there were no fatalities.  But now I feel even worse about what happend, in that there were people who needed help, and instead I went and drank whiskey with my friends and ate some extremely delicious sausages.  It was one of those moments where I was cursing the person that failed to exhibit simple signs of humanity, only to find that I was that person.

While I know that, realistically, if we had stuck around to try and help, we would have just been gawkers who were getting in the way of people who could genuinely do something important.  Intellectually, there is no reason to feel bad.  There were a number of people who instantly offered assistance, and before we could get to the BBQ, there were a number of ambulances and other vehicles already responding to the accident.  People who were trained and skilled professionals who would actually do something helpful were going to help.  We, unfortunately, were not.

Still, I felt awful.

A couple of months ago, a friend and co-worker of mine died in a car accident.  I say friend, but really she was more or an acquaintance.  I had played cards with her a few times, she dated a good friend of mine, and I saw her every day at work.  We weren’t super close, but we didn’t have to be.  I was absolutely floored when I found out about her death, and while the circumstances were completely different from the accident we witnessed, I can’t help but see some sort of connection.  In both cases, the accidents were completely unnecessary, and yet the both affected me.  And yet, I was not the one even secondarily involved.

I have never been particularly fond of vehicles.  I’m a 37 year old man who does not know how to drive.  I’ve always been a little frightened of how dangerous large cars are, and as someone who lives on a well-traveled corner where there are almost accidents every few minutes, I feel very strongly about my vehicular discomfort.  But this distaste is not practical in the least bit.  I need to be able to travel, and since we have yet to master magic or teleportation, very fast vehicles seem to be the solution.

Part of me wants to say that these accidents could entirely be eliminated if people were more perceptive regarding the world around them, and there is truth in that, undoubtedly.  But would I do any better were I the driver?  Perhaps not.  The world around us is what it is, and no matter what kind of horrific accidents do happen, being more perceptive just means that we will see them more clearly when they happen.  I can’t allow myself to become paralyzed by accidents, nor can I allow myself to become complecent, either.  But the image of that accident terrifies me, not only because it happened in front of me, but because every time I remember it I am reminded of my friend who is no longer with us.

When we went back home later that night, we took 205 North, only to see that the accident was entirely cleaned up.  There were three cars involved in the accident (two of them stayed on the northbound side), and all that remained in terms of signs that there had been an accident were the usual barrier damage, and small bits and pieces on the road.  At that moment, it looked like the accident could have happened says, or even a week prior.

In our lives, we are so quick to try and put things out of our heads.  We want to get to a healthy place, a happy place, and a place that is better for our well-being, and put out of our minds these kinds of things that we witness.  Already, elements that seemed vivid and terrifying have become fuzzy and incomplete.  In another month or so, I’ll probably think of this incident rarely.  This is how we cope with the thought of mortality, and how we prevent ourselves from becoming terrified recluses who never leave the house.

Still, it seems like one of those experiences where there is a less obvious lesson to be learned, about the human condition, and who we are as people, and how we should behave and how we should move forward in a positive and more productive way.  I feel like there should be some great epiphany here, that I can share some kind of wisdom with you about how I grew as a person, and what I can share with you in my growth.

But this time, I can’t.  All I have for you is a story about how I witnessed an accident, how I’m thankful that my friends and family were not in it, and how I will probably be trying to make sense of it for longer than I originally thought.

My hope is that those involved know that I really do care, and that I wish for them the best in however the future turns out.