Many miles to go before I rest...

"Recapitulation...it's like going back to the beginning of things and then working your way through all the successive stages of human development to where we are now. ... Recapitulation is a good teacher...we all do it some way or another... ."

I read these words as hubby and I rolled along I-80 westbound for Omaha. It was a brief journey to help a family member settle into a new town and get started on a new phase in her life, the one that sets her on life's greatest adventure: discovering the woman she is destined to become.

But I'm not thinking about her as the word "recapitulation" dances across my tongue. I'm thinking, instead, of a road trip that hubby and I haphazardly plan for coming winter -- when the grass has gone dormant, the leaves have all fallen from the grapevines, the equipment is all winterized, the market has closed, and we face an open stretch of commitment-free time for the first time in thirty years spent together. The open road ... time to recapitulate... .

I've felt the pull of the open road since girlhood but roadblocks to what I imagine to be the ultimate freedom experience materialized before I could finish packing the car. I'm not complaining, mind you. I've loved my life that has included convention, middle-of-the-road suburban parenting and dutiful employment. I met all my responsibilities at the front door. Yet I believe there is still something to be learned and the road is my classroom, recapitulation my teacher.

Along I-80, hubby and I talked about taking to the road for weeks. Maybe we will sleep in the car or throw a mattress in the bed of the truck. I offered the image of a used VW camper bus with bright yellow daisies painted on the side. We can travel like gypsies or the way college kids used to when they were considered "poor." I'd bring the camera and the journal. He'd manage our stash of nourishment. Oh the lessons we could learn!

Of course there's no way to know for sure if this trip will ever materialize for us. Yet I long for it to occur. I long to hear and see places new, even if they look and feel as familiar as home. I want to examine what's old, yet new to me, to see if my understanding of the world changes in line with my perspective. And I want to experience life as if I stood at the starting gate. I want to ride again. I want to recapitulate.