After that first introduction, they fell into a comfortable pattern of daily text messaging, emails and phone calls. Discovering an undeniable attraction and sense of shared outlook on the world. Compatible yet different in so many ways, she made friends at the drop of hello, while he held back to watch and listen and consider. Cautious to a fault, he felt like he had missed out on embracing sudden opportunities throughout his life. This time would be different. Both came from relationships where positive support was limited, where they couldn’t be their true selves. It was time to look forward now, to find their way together. A few weekend visits and several months later, the opportunity presented when they both moved to the Houston area, he began working in Clear Lake, and she lived in the city.
They spent that next year close in time and place. Together every weekend. Saturday mornings were consumed with long runs crossing through the city and time spent lingering over breakfast. Sunday outings to city parks, forays down to Galveston on cool winter mornings. Eventually they moved into a rented bungalow near the medical center. He thought “I don’t even know this person, and we are suddenly sharing our lives together.” They told no one, not family or friends, and reveled in their secret, private world.
It was late July, in the second year of their relationship. Around the time of the apex as he liked to call it, when the morning sky dims a bit and the shadows of the trees begin to lengthen, imperceptivity at first, and then one day the southern angle of the sun asserts itself, still blazing hot days and nights, but the promise of fall is on the closing horizon. “Let’s quit our jobs and start our own business, how hard can that be? And move far away.” When he was much younger, he dreamt about escaping commitments to start a new and anonymous life. Save up cash and buy a car and drive out of sight to a new place, no one could track him. Now he has a traceable phone and credit cards and the whole concept of disappearing seems so made up. Or is it?? How could they do this?
The plan was to escape, to simply pack up and drive away, initially toward Virginia – Terry had family there from way back. She was the second of four children and the only one to leave her hometown. Her father was a master electrician who turned to farming in early retirement. Harder work for sure and it often paid less for years on end. He kept 180 acres in hay and seasonal soybeans, along with a dozen head of cattle. She learned to fix fences and ride horses at a young age; milk cows and run a plow. He grew up in a city up north, all concrete and asphalt and telephone lines and narrow streets. Somehow though he discovered an early love for nature and kept every small animal possible in the tiny yard of his childhood home. And he did not mind outdoor labor, would work in a nursery or as a landscaper if he could start over. Although he was hardly mechanical, he didn’t mind trying. Said it took three times as long and ninety percent right and half the cost to do it on his own, and he learned along the way.
They bought a sprinter van and wandered out of Houston with few possessions and few cares; they had each other. An early stop for coffee and breakfast, with a music playlist that leaned toward alternative songwriters, keyboard and piano, the plan was to avoid all current news and politics especially, watch the weather, talk, and let the world pass by. That first day ascending on narrow state roads leading east and north, leaving Texas behind. Don’t look back. A restless night in Hot Springs Arkansas, they were so good together, but sleep eluded as thoughts raced through their minds, who are we? Morning brought a short, sweet run alongside, time spent lingering and then the road was upon them once again. These places seemed familiar from past lives, as the closed-in mountain roads opened to a wide blue sky, fields of soybeans, corn and cotton. They talked of childhood dreams and temporary freedom from work, old friends and family memories. Time to take stock and plan, listen to each other and follow the road for two more days. How to sustain a new life. This wasn’t a trivial exercise, with properties and investment accounts and IRA’s and stock options and some disposable income, maybe enough for a year or three if they were prudent.
Find where to settle and work remote and lose themselves in a new place. Early on they settled on the possibility of a life in Maine or eastern Canada. There is a need to be a close couple and still retain independent interests, many to be sampled, how long to be on leave from structured society, and when to re-apply structure. “Let’s give ourselves a few months to stay unmoored from the past and future, explore, play and plan.” He was the planner; she was the dreamer. Take those dreams and fit them to size. Find a twelve-month rental somewhere remote, while they begin to plan for a life after this life.
They stopped over in Stewartsville, just east of Roanoke, to check in on Terry’s family; this whole journey would be a shock to them. The family home is set on the edge of a sprawling farm, narrow, winding country roads, a church, a Dollar Store, two local eateries, and local farm supply businesses. Beautiful, peaceful countryside supporting productive lives.
After all these years her home and lifestyle seemed confined; perhaps that always comes with age and life’s adventures. After a brief visit they decided it would be best to move on, north and east, to his old house, not that far away but in a different world from rural Virginia. Narrow hills, cobblestone streets, row houses in the Federal Hill neighborhood within south Baltimore. Childhood friends had moved on and the place reinvented, it attracts tourists now to the harbor attractions, though the family home had remained unchanged.
A brief stop, introductions and getting to know you, two days were more than enough for family time.
Keep driving east through the rolling mountains of Pennsylvania, then north through Scranton and up into New York. Don’t stop now, travel the Hudson Valley and then further east through New Hampshire, and finally north again into Maine, coffee and pizza fueled them, early morning runs and dark nights tumbling to sleep together. Time accelerated in a sense. The morning air was heavy and still moist, but not oppressive. Each day they run side by side and he still held her by the crook of her arm, guiding along to bond close. A final sprint and they laugh with the effort, each day together. The eastern forests are still in full bloom, growth has slowed, and they stand still for a few more weeks before they mature into fall.
The initial destination was Acadia National Park, a place they had always wanted to visit. They rolled in late one afternoon to Southwest Harbor, with a sudden hunger for local caught fish and sourdough bread. Linger by the harbor walkways and promenade. Watch a young couple in close discussion, a family with dog in tow, young locals immersed in social media, the sun bright still but leaning hard to the west. The air is cool and almost dry, as a fine mist settles in off the coast.
Just down the road, “Acadia Cottages” catch their eye, rustic, quiet, private, serene with wood framed beds and down comforters. A quiet rustic room will be just fine for a few days. This is what they wished for during those many years of rushed travel and work and meetings and obligations. Terry makes a food run, she can make a salad out of anything, with fresh fish to be broiled, bread with olive oil and a bottle of wine. A glass of wine, two, they are in training, but this fine evening is a chance to settle in and talk of the past and future without restrictions on ambition. He watches her carefully, her long light fingers know their way, simply and wonderfully presented. Each other linger together for a long quiet dessert. Now that routine is fully stripped away, backwards wake-up math is no longer needed.