WHAT WAS I THINKING?

A Snippet of a Story



“What was I thinking?” I thought to myself, carefully keeping the expression on my face calm and pleasant. We haven’t spent thirty minutes alone together in the past ten years, and now I find myself jumping into a week-long, one-on-one, very isolated experiment with my slightly older sister. I very deliberately thrust my left foot into the car and my body quickly followed, the words, “WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE,” echoing in my head. Conversation for the first twenty minutes was slightly stilted, determinedly pleasant, and scant. So far, so good. No alarming swerves or slamming of brakes. She was concentrating on her driving and I was free to grab quick, assessing glances in her direction.
She was beautiful. Once blonde, now bright red, cropped hair was youthful, and her silhouette was classically pretty. Our years of separation allowed me the distance to observe the fine lines that had appeared at the corners of her eyes and to appreciate the continued existence of her beautiful mouth and very slightly perky nose.
The car was approaching the first of many junctions at which we would, together, determine which way we would go, and suddenly, I remembered my raincoat, which I had decided would be wise to bring on a trip to the rainiest area in the US. “My raincoat!” I gasped, slapping my hand over my mouth. “What’s wrong?” my sister asked, swerving a little from the shock of my outburst. “I was going to pick up my raincoat at the drycleaners about five miles back,” I said, a little less emotionally than my first startling yell. Now, my sister was not the patient, nurturing older sister of some reminiscences, and I expected her to say, “Oh, well,” or “You probably won’t need it,” at the very least; more likely, she would roll her eyes and ask, with a not-so-subtle sigh, “Do you want me to turn around?”
The car swerved across a lane of slower traffic to an off ramp and sped onto a surface road going in the opposite direction. “Tell me where to go,” she said calmly, a little smirk turning into a smile. I waited for some kind of sarcastic/teasing comment in the fifteen minutes it took to get back to the drycleaners. Nothing. And, looking back, I now recognize that that one, unexpected, uncharacteristic (I thought) deviation from our course would set the tone for the glorious adventure on the road (and beyond).
The fourteen-hour drive turned out to be pleasant, and I was surprised at how alike we were; potty break needs were compatible, and our appreciation of the scenery was a shared treasure. That first, unanticipated swerve heralded the spirit of our adventure, as we shared our food and our music and chattered nonstop. Several days passed during which we traveled as we desired, visited with relatives and marveled together over the incredible scenery, which slowly changed from sagebrush desert to greener pastures to mossy rainforests.
There were some serendipitous moments, like the time I spotted a LDS (Mormon) Temple suddenly rising just off the freeway in a misty stand of evergreen trees. I excitedly pointed out the spires to her, and the next thing I knew, we were sailing across four lanes of sparse traffic to the off-ramp leading to an hours-worth of howling fun as we drove through an unfamiliar city looking for access to the illusive building we had seen from the freeway. By the time we re-entered the freeway in time to once again see the same building rising again from the forest, our journey had once again taken on the mantle of happy-go-lucky adventure rather than a sprint to get somewhere in a specified time.
There were some tense moments, like the time we found ourselves on an unfamiliar, seemingly endless freeway in an overwhelmingly large city and the time our car (her car) suddenly just stopped (while I was at the wheel, of course). What could have added the flavor of tension and disharmony only added the feeling of strength and unity to our band of two. We were a dynamic duo, slightly surprised to be capable of finding our way through a strange land to a promised wonderland of untold excitement and adventure. We had become a team, jaws set, determined to find every minute particle of fun and passion and adventure which hung in the misty unknown future of the next two weeks.
We had arranged to meet several family members in Seattle, where we would all set off on a cruise to the north to seek the rugged and mystical land known as Alaska. By the time we arrived at the appointed meeting point, our companionship was easy and surprisingly strong. Our arrival at the dock from which we would sail was a bit daunting and anxiety-laden; the crowd of people which had arrived before us was large, and as we approached the large doorway into which they were disappearing, I realized that our journey had just begun. Our expensive, thrilling, and long-awaited vacation had taken on the feel of a huge roundup; the crowd of people were being herded into a make-shift maze leading from where we had entered the building to our goal – the long row of desks on the other side of the large, hanger-like building behind which stood an alarming-looking group of officials who were eyeing us with as much suspicion as we were eyeing them.
We looked at one another for a second: I was thinking of turning and booking it back to the security of the car and vacation plans be damned. I suppose that my sister recognized the look on my face, because she grabbed my arm and hissed. “The faster we get into that line, the faster we’ll be through!” Claustrophobia hovered over my psyche as I reluctantly acknowledged the logic of her reasoning. I sighed loudly at her and hustled to join her as she entered the maze. “This is going to take hours!” I whined quietly at her, re-employing an old childhood ploy. “These people are going to be our very close neighbors for the next week,” she muttered quietly toward me. “By this time tomorrow, you’ll be glad for all the security,” she added. This unexpected wisdom coming from the mouth of my sister who had been known as the dumb blonde throughout our teen-age years quieted my mouth for a time. Well, she might have encouraged the dumb blonde image, but I was holding tight to my long-forgotten-now-remembered self entertainment of earning the title of ‘resister of authority’.

Roni