So these are some random observations from the last few days, when Simon and Garfunkel's "America" has been running through my head like a theme song. First of all, returning to the world of bus travel seems to take me back forty years to my journeys to and from college. There's something amazing about the fact that this mode of travel still exists at all, and yet thank goodness for it. In these seriously volatile times, the world outside that big high coach window seems strangely placid. New England and Upstate New York are, if anything, even more tree-filled than when I was a child, and there continue to be miles and miles of fields dotted by trim farmhouses, red barns and grain silos. You see more from the bus window than from a train, especially as you enter a city or town through the streets; the echoes of peeling painted signs on the sides of old brick factories, the 19th century wood frame houses in dire need of repair, and the dated 1960's-era businesses cheek-by-jowl with modern coffee franchises.
I was, um, interested in/concerned by the fact that two or three of my fellow passengers were traveling with clear plastic bags in lieu of luggage. A man tried to stow a bicycle wrapped in brown paper under the bus. I am not sure he was successful -- it should have been boxed. The US seems so different from Europe this way, in that people traveling by city or inter-city bus are generally low income. There is something strangely symbolic when the bus passes a big car dealership with its shiny SUV's, or a swank housing development. It all seems quite out of reach. But also "fleeting," literally.
In central New York, quite a few Amish travel by bus. When I was younger, I was fascinated by the Amish, as I guess I always am by people living in spiritual community. Their black and blue costumes and hats/bonnets, so archaic, aren't the only thing that sets them apart of course, but I envy their sense of community and their common uniform. What I don't envy is that they don't look particularly healthy overall -- two women, carrying tiny girl babies dressed in full miniature black bonnets, aprons and blue dresses, initially struck me as being grandmothers, with gaunt faces and sunken eyes. When I looked closely, I realized that these were relatively young mothers in their twenties. They carry ancient suitcases and brown boxes tied up with string. But at a rest stop, a young Amish man returned to the bus with a fast food meal, so I guess they aren't completely doctrinaire about modern life...
This bus journey through the part of the world that is, in theory, my home territory, seems to have brought me to a new understanding of why I can only seem to wander, not settle, in America. I'm not ready to write about it yet, but a sense of peace has come over me that I might not have experienced if I hadn't taken to the road again. All of us on the bus were, on some level, there to "look for America," and if you look out the window, you can't help but learn something important, if you are ready.
Now, since I didn't really "celebrate" my own 60th birthday, I'll do it this weekend. BBQ, pies, champagne, hoopla, dear friends. Yay! So blessed. I suspect after 60 it is all "icing on the cake."
