The grass in the backyard was starting to turn brown. The New Hampshire summer day was humid and the season was starting to take a toll on the grass. As my mother and uncle looked on from the shade of the screen porch, my sister, cousin, and I dug our toes into the dry grass and ran towards the pool sitting diagonally from the porch. Brenna and Scott made it, I did not.

Back in those days we had one of those pools where you inflate the top ring and the rest of the pool elevates as you fill it with water.

As Brenna and Scott jumped over the air-filled edge into the cool water, I subsequently hit the edge and face planted into the pool in a seemingly painful and notably awkward fashion.

This is what they tell me, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember.

Today I was reunited with my cousin Scott for the first time in 10 years. He told me the story about my fateful face-plant into the pool and my uncle confirmed it. Seeing my cousin and family in Santa Barbara is fulfilling and warms my heart but it also makes me question my memory.

Earlier in the week I was listening to a TED Radio Hour podcast about memory. One part of the episode discussed how all memories are reconstructed from post-experience information. The host also discussed how good things can modify moments in the past, as well as how the endings of experiences can significantly impact how we remember experiences.

I remember the day I fell in the pool, we ate lobster and the smell made me sick, and I was happy I got to see my cousin. But, point taken: I probably chose to forget about falling in the pool.

In all seriousness though, the segment provoked me to think about my own memory. I’m a journalist I have a good memory, even if I write it all down, right? In the past people have been weirded out by me because I remember something they told me years before. But it happened again.

As I drove into Santa Barbara yesterday I stopped paying attention to my directions. I thought, “Surely, I remember the area enough to find the house.” Yeah Danielle, surely you remember turns and road names from when you were in third grade and didn’t drive.

I needed my directions.

But I also was surprised how my memory mapped on to reality. Granted things change over time, but I remembered a different colored house, a smaller kitchen and a bedroom in the opposite direction. I remember the beach being further away and I didn’t remember the mountains (how did I not remember the mountains?). My cousin and I both remembered last time we were together singing Don McLean’s “American Pie” and Nine Days “Absolutely (Story of a Girl).” The latter almost word-for-word.

What my elementary school self thought was interesting, is, well, interesting.

The details become a narrative I tell myself about people and places. My California story held up pretty well, but it certainly needed some updating.

Remembering and forgetting got me thinking about how much control we have over our own perceptions of reality. In a way, it reinforces the idea of positive thinking, which I was already sold on anyhow. Even if I slept in my car during a torrential thunderstorm for the fifth night, I can choose between remembering how I couldn’t straighten my legs in the morning or I can focus on the relaxing sound of rain on the metal roof of the car.

Another example, the day after listening to the aforementioned TED talk I hiked my first 14,000 footer. It was painfully hard. I got elevation sickness, felt like I might puke, and had a headache worse than the ones brought on by a past concussion. But, holy crap, this hike was beautiful. The air was still and quiet, the sun warm, and everywhere I turned were more snowy peaks melting into the horizon. But ouch my head hurt. Skipping the discussion of how I made it to the top using a lot of self-talk and some singing, I stood at 14,060 feet overwhelmed by what I was seeing and feeling. I was truly happy. I still had to make my way down though, with the TED talk in mind I tried to make going down the most fun experience I could have had. If the end of my experience had a significant impact on my memory of it, I wanted to remember this day as good. On the way down, I sang, dreamt about skiing, I chatted with myself, with the birds and a few people I met along the way. Only time will tell how I remember it all, but so far so good.

Our perspective determines how we look back on the life we tell ourselves we had. Ten years ago, I chose to remember hanging out with my cousin instead of falling on my face. Potentially less emotionally painful, but also a point for positivity.

Bold for the Autumn: Day 12

Last summer when I went to Aroostook County, Maine for the first time I was surprised by vastness of agriculture—specifically potatoes in the county. When I drove through the cornfields in Virginia I thought, “this is the biggest agriculture I’ve seen.”

Nothing could have prepared me for the flat, seemingly endless landscape of Kansas.

Apart from the occasional exit with a gas station or grain elevator the most profound image I saw in Kansas was a sign that read “Abortion Kills,” in front of an industrial size field of corn with oil riggs bobbing in and out of the ground. I’ll just let you make what you want of that one.

As a sustainable agriculture, enthusiast, writer, student etc. I felt it was important to see “Big Ag” first hand and try to get a grasp of a food production system removed from the backyard gardens and small organic farms in Maine.

My greatest observation: damn, it is big.

As I spent two days driving I-70 West I struggled to calculate just how far the uniform rows and crackled soils reached into the horizon. I couldn’t figure out how far cattle herds wandered home. In short the size of it all was incomprehensible.

I’ve been practicing my own smallness.

Feeling small is important.

I’m learning how to move through a space and be reminded of how much more there is outside myself, how differently people live and how lucky I am to be a tiny part of this maze. The feeling of smallness is one I welcome.

I often get it on top of mountains. I certainly did at the top of Mount Bierstadt, my first 14,000 footer I hiked on Tuesday.

Feeling small is integral to my sanity. I breathe in and exhale. I feel free of responsibilities and I feel fully alive.

I’ve been on my road trip for (almost) two weeks now and I’ve met a fair bunch of people.

Among all the people I met and most of the folks I stayed with, I had variations on the following conversation:

Person: “Oh wow you drove this far?”

Me: “Yep, I’m driving across country,”

(pause)

Person: “Wait so you’re by yourself?”

Me: “Yep!”

(longer pause)

Person: “I mean do you like that? Don’t you get lonely?”

I quickly realized that solo female adventures are rare and I’m the exception. But I think most peoples’ questions come from a place of loneliness. They wonder why I would want to go on a long journey by myself.

I think the answer has two parts:

1. Being alone doesn’t mean you’re lonely

2. When you’re comfortable with yourself long stints of alone time aren’t stifling but liberating.

(Insert extrovert/introvert psychoanalysis here).

Despite what Buzzfeed says about the “36 ways to tell I’m an introvert” I think most people should work towards knowing themselves well enough that they can be alone for a few days.

So attribute it to me being an introvert, but I truly believe that if you don’t like being with yourself then why would anyone else?

Between listening to Serial and Dear Sugar podcasts, I had detailed and in-depth conversations with myself. I asked myself hard questions about why I make choices I do and how I deal with pain and adversity. I cried, I made room for feelings I’ve been suppressing, I laughed at my own stubbornness and felt truly happy about some of the relationships I’ve cultivated.

Being alone can be transformative, but it also has shortcomings.

Am I lonely? No

Do I miss people? Yes

I’ve seen some pretty incredible things since I wrote last. The times I feel alone are when I wish to share what I see with others and can’t. I stayed with some incredible people who have welcomed me into their homes. But my time spent with others is fleeting and never lasts more than a few days. When I meet strangers it’s exciting to learn about someone new, but those moments are brief as well. Sometimes sharing verbally over the phone is enough, sometimes it’s not. I feel like I have so much love and excitement to give to others and myself and these are the times my aloneness verges on loneliness.

Driving from Colorado to Arizona was the first time my whole trip I felt truly alone. It wasn’t like Kansas, food was growing there and exits had gas.

If I could multiply the vastness of Kansas by three I think I’d come close to the landscape between Utah and Arizona. From a distance I watched large rock structures erect themselves on the horizon—appearing too far away for the drive I was on. I watched them get closer and closer yet was still surprised by their enormity when I finally reached them miles and hours later.

The way the scenery changed from canyons to plateaus and various other glacial structures was captivating, complex and made me in passing moments want to be a geologist. I thought about the native people who were first on this land and I wonder how the enormity, but ultimate freedom, felt to them.

Was it paralyzing or liberating?

For me I think it was both, but I came at the drive with a totally different acculturation. 

I first felt truly alone on my trek from Colorado to Arizona once it was dark. My own smallness in this situation was overpowering to the point where I scared myself a little.

I drove directly into a lightening storm and up in elevation. I had to sleep in my car. Again.

I think everyday I scare myself at least a little. Excuse me for sounding preachy but these moments are challenges—ones I’m creating for myself— but I’m growing each day, in small ways, because of it.

And that I am thankful for.

I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve been without internet, so to fill you in on the last few days, here is my week in photos.

Bold for the Autumn Day 3 and 4

When I drive on I-95 in from the NH/Maine border to Orono I always take solace in Orono not being listed as  the “farthest away distance” on the mile marker signs. Sure, Bangor is usually towards the bottom but Houlton is always further.

Yesterday, I spent all day driving to the furthest place on the list, Nashville, TN.

Apart from celebratory hoots and hollers I shared with myself after about 8 hours when I crossed the Virginia/Tennessee line, I spent the whole day driving I-40 west from the most eastern point in Virginia to Nashville. I learned I-40 is a major artery for the country’s 18-wheelers. There were as many trucks as passenger vehicles and truck drivers sure didn’t mind flipping their high beams at me to move, cutting me off or staring at me through their side-view mirrors for way too long. Moments like those are when I miss driving North on I-95 in Maine (did I just say I miss that?!).

Not that people in Maine are always nice drivers, they just aren’t bullies. My trip has been filled with many moments like this where I’m reminded how different Maine, and usually New England are from the rest of the country. Or rather how all places are so different. As I passed through the Smokey Mountains I felt closer to home but the Sugarloaf ornament hanging from my rearview mirror still reminded how I preferred my own local mountains better. In New York City, I headed to Central Park, the most natural place I could find for need of comfort. It is our nature, isn’t it, to find what is most similar to our own existence the most beautiful, or perhaps the most comforting? Constantly living in those comfort zones isn’t always what makes us learn and grow though. That’s why I’m here, in my car.

I’ve seen a lot in the past week although I haven’t made it past the Mississippi yet. In the past week I’ve driven through fields of corn, which likely fed the chickens I passed in a truck stuffed with the identical white nearly dead birds. They will go through Perdue and Tyson plants I drove by making them look more identical and then the Sysco plant I passed by will distribute them to grocery stores so people who live in the brick houses and manicured lawns I ran by can buy and eat them for dinner.

As different as all the places I’ve been seem, I’ve been overwhelmed with monocultures. Of course not all the people in these places are like that, but I feel like some sort of ghost among these spaces. Passing through long enough to get a snapshot but not ever changing the landscape in any significant way. At times, the routine of these places is something I crave, but I’ve been mostly rejecting routine along this trip, apart from a daily workout I do. Routine can be a tool to get a lot done in a busy time, and for me it often has been during school. A schedule can be comforting in times of change, but routine can also make us complacent—my most-feared adjective.

Complacency doesn’t scare us, challenge us or tempt us. Yet if removed, we can confront new experiences with curiosity, pleasure, and often reward.

As Chris McCandless said in Into the Wild,  “the joy in life comes from our encounters with new experiences,” I’d add and sharing them with people as well.

It doesn’t take driving across the country to avoid complacency but this is a challenge, to myself and you who is reading this. Try something new for an afternoon. Reject constant routine and go somewhere (physically, mentally, conversationally or otherwise) you’ve never been before.

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My music the past few days includes:

-“The Earth is Not A Cold Dead Place,” Explosions in the Sky

-“Favourite Worst Nightmare,” Arctic Monkeys

-“The Winter of Mixed Drinks,” Frightened Rabbitt