Nothing is more uplifting than sharing time with friends and family. That’s why I’m really looking forward to the impending holiday weekend this coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the 22nd through the 24th. I’ve got a lot to celebrate, as do many other people.
This weekend I plan on taking time to fully appreciate the good health I’ve been blessed with recently. That’s an all-too-frequently-overlooked asset. Many people (including me, I’m afraid) don’t appropriately acknowledge that gift for what it’s worth until we’re deprived of it, even if only temporarily.
But there’s also lots more to savor. I just spent three weeks on the road, traveling from places ranging from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to the Blue Ridge Mountains to several pristine Carolina beaches, reconnecting along the way with people I hadn’t seen in far too long. Everywhere I went I was treated like royalty by family, old friends, new friends, and total strangers I’ll probably never lay eyes on again.
I drove 2884 miles by myself. During that time I not only got to control what (if anything) was on the radio, I also took the opportunity to clearly and rationally process several issues that required thoughtful reflection. And I did all that while inside a humidity-free car where the temperature was always 25 to 30 degrees cooler than it was outside.
I had company for the other 1500-ish miles of driving, but my delightful, patient companions were, are, and likely always will be a pleasure and a privilege to share time and space with.
During the trip I not only walked along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, I got to drive my car across it as well. I combed a South Carolina beach looking for flawless shells, and later, in western North Carolina, hiked while a couple of thousand feet above sea level. I explored towns and cities I’d read about but hadn’t previously visited, and also learned that a clean environment is just as important to southerners as it is to New Englanders. (see photos). I also learned it’s still possible to get from Point A to Point B over unfamiliar roads without a GPS, even if it did, on one occasion, require getting over-the-phone, step-by-step directions (in live time) from a 6’4” adult I hadn’t seen since he was a seven-year-old kid playing with his trucks in a backyard dirt pile. Without his verbal instructions I’d have probably ended up in Newark, New Jersey instead of Newark, Delaware, where I enjoyed a long-overdue reunion with his uber-cool parents and their extended family.
I may have been GPS-less, but I’m still thankful for technology. Without it I wouldn’t have been able to chat with friends hundreds of miles away as I traveled. And in case any state troopers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, or either of the Carolinas are reading this, you have my word: those phone conversations were all done hands-free.
Mostly.
After all that traveling I plan on spending this coming holiday weekend at home celebrating the well-maintained roads and courteous drivers who allowed me to return safely to Maine. I’ll also consciously appreciate my good health, my good friends, my great neighbors, and the random strangers who continue to shower me with kindnesses for no reason at all. I’ll also remind myself that I enjoy my job, and that it’s an important one.
The calendar says Thanksgiving falls on November’s fourth Thursday each year. But for me (and with the right attitude, most people reading this), Thanksgiving weekend should be every weekend.
Andy Young
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