More astonishment, more dismay, so more stories. I have a (mostly) hand-written memoir still in storage (yup, in Duluth still!) I hope this story isn't one I've told here in the blog, or at least that it's been a while.
1990 was a pivotal year. I left Time Inc. and New York, and initially went to Pendle Hill, the Quaker study center outside Philadelphia. After almost a decade in the big city, this was a healing balm, so much so that I stayed longer than I originally intended. Part of what I was doing (in the quiet, introspective space) was trying ("once and for all", which really has never happened!) to address the England/church music issue. From what I could see at that pre-internet moment, there were still no girls or women in the good British choirs, and even though this might have been a great moment to visit the UK to explore my options, rightly or wrongly, I still felt defeated and unwelcome. So over the course of several months, I tried to gear myself up to better get to know my own country. In the quiet of Quakerism's silent worship, I was living high church Anglicanism's utter religious opposite -- maybe I could do the same in a life somewhere in America.
So after a brief visit with my parents, I bought a tiny red used car, and set off to see this country. The Quakers had an informal network of potential places to stay, called "Traveling Friends", and I also had actual friends and family scattered about. My original thought had been that I would go all the way to California through the middle of the country, then circle back via the northern route. And if along the way I found a place to live that called to me, so much the better.
One of my brothers had told me that I would hate the center part of the country, that it was too flat to be interesting. And yet, oddly enough, I found that I loved the flattish farming landscapes that I started to find in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. One striking thing was, every time I saw a barn silo on the horizon, my brain interpreted it as being an English cathedral or church tower. It was the first time I had been that far west, in a place where agriculture was all. I stayed in eastern Kansas with an older couple who were Quakers, but they attended worship meetings that were programmed, that is, more like a conventional church, with hymns and readings. They told me to go out onto their long gravel driveway and look at some of the stones. Sure enough, it was quite astonishing -- virtually every piece of rock held a fossil of either sea life or some other early form of animal life. They explained that Kansas had been long underwater...how did I not know that?
I loved driving alone. I kept an atlas in the front seat, and that's how I navigated, with quick glances down. (At this point, I don't recommend this method!) I stopped every few hours for gas and a snack or bathroom break. And I tried to arrange the next night's shelter the night before, although I think once or twice I was forced to use a motel. The oracle of the license plates started saying "Minnesota" early on...lots of Minnesotans drove by me throughout the trip. My playlist? Old-fashioned cassettes of Loreena McKennitt, Maura O'Connell, Nancy Griffith, REM, and Mary Chapin Carpenter...I stayed with a cousin in Colorado, but I had been gone at least three weeks by then, and I was already beginning to get weary of movement. I also quickly became weary of the Rockies...too imposing and overwhelming. So the idea of heading to California was scrapped. Instead, I wended my way up to Montana to see my brother, and then started back east via Montana's ghost towns (Roundup and Ingomar) and North Dakota. I was disappointed to be heading east again, but nowhere had yet grabbed me as a place to stay and set down roots.
Silly roadside attractions like the world's largest ball of twine aren't as much fun alone, but I did stop from time to time to see them, just to say I had. I tried not to think of the extreme contrast between these tourist attractions and the ones I had seen over the years in Europe...I had made the best life decision I knew how to make under the circumstances, and for the moment, "that was that".
I would end up attending a Quaker gathering in Wisconsin where I met a woman from Duluth, Minnesota. I was embarrassed not to really know where that was, but once I looked at my map and saw that it was on Lake Superior, I became intrigued. I was invited up for a visit and headed up Interstate 35, not knowing what to expect. When I drove over the crest of the hill and looked down over the city perched at the end of an endless lake, I knew that I had, at the very least, found a place to explore. I had mixed feelings, though -- within the hour, I had also found a small Episcopal church. I pushed open the front door, and, amused to be smelling the typical Episcopal smell, I sat in one of the pews and burst into tears. The rector came and chatted with me, to make sure I was OK. She reassured me that feeling a bit disconcerted was normal after so many changes and travels, yet I found myself asking God (not the Goddess yet!) what on earth was going on. I would end up staying much of that decade in Duluth, although I came and went a few times, and always knew it was more of a spiritual "perch" than a permanent home. And I would return there before COVID for another five years or so. I am enormously grateful for how the city, my friends, and the lake held me safe at times when I needed that.
Thinking back on that trip around the country, I marvel at the fact that I was so free. I had worked hard in the corporate world for almost a decade to pay back my student loans, but, unmarried and with no children, for that short time, I had no major obligations. (Unfortunately, I didn't yet feel any guilt about the use of a gasoline-powered car to wander rather aimlessly.) A hundred years earlier such a solo trip would have been impossible; there were no cars, no interstates, and few women with any autonomy. And sixty-five years from now, it's hard to know what life will be like for anyone, male or female. It seems almost like that year was a blessed moment in time, bringing me an equally blessed measure of freedom. While it didn't bring me the life I might have preferred, it brought me rapid growth as a spiritual woman, and a perspective I might not have gained otherwise.
