In my earliest memories, I could whistle John Philip Sousa’s The Stars and Strips Forever, including those pesky piccolo trills. Since I come from a family of prodigious whistlers, it wasn’t until I left home that I learned, for many people, whistling is annoying. So I stopped. Several years later, I tried to whistle but all I could muster was a toneless hiss that sounded more like a car tire slowly deflating. 

Whistling became one more item on the growing list of things I can no longer do along with cartwheels, back bends, or hopping over puddles of apparently any diameter, keeping my two feet pressed together. Every time I realized I couldn’t do these sorts of trivial things, I shrugged and moved on. Frankly, it was all quite meaningless. Until early May when I had a panic attack at the Enterprise rental car lot in Missoula, Montana.

Pat was headed to West Yellowstone to manage the late stages of the renovation of our son Ryan’s hotel. I was heading off for a month of solo travel in Washington and Oregon. In this moment, it hit me. I’d driven so seldom—both over the course of this trip and throughout thirteen car-free years—that the thought of driving for a month was terrifying. When I told Pat how I felt, he replied the way he always does. “You can do this. I have total confidence in you.”

And alas, I had no choice but to believe him. I started the car (I still can’t get over pressing a button), fiddled with the various knobs to get oriented, and tentatively merged onto the 80 mph serpentine speedway known as I-90. Every time I entered a 40 mph work zone, and thankfully there were several, I’d resume breathing. Those first days were incredibly difficult.

Partially it was because I hated driving, but beyond that, this lack of confidence in something which had always been so effortless and core to my independence was equal parts alarming and frightening. I spent much of the next weeks contemplating how imperceptible loss can be—until one day it aggregates into something that can’t be denied. And how complicit I’d been each time I’d walked to the car and said to Pat, “Do you mind driving?”

During a week-long stop in Spokane, I forced myself to take regular day trips by car into the surrounding farmland. In these quiet hours, I whistled. Truth be told, I’m not a listener of audiobooks, podcasts, or even music. Generally, I travel in silence and use that time to unknot my thoughts.

But on this trip, I practiced the more complicated songs from my high-school choir days: Ezekiel Saw the Wheel, The Hallelujah Chorus, and (of course) The Stars and Stripes Forever. By the end of four weeks, I was slicing effortlessly through traffic while whistling Sweet Georgia Brown with, if not gusto, a recognizable tone. 

By the time I arrived in West Yellowstone, Pat had worked 10-12 hour days, seven days a week for the previous four weeks wrapping up the construction phase, and I was half way through the score of Phantom of the Opera. It was my turn to get to work—inventorying a mountain of linens, unpacking hundreds of deliveries, cleaning, making beds, hanging curtains. We both continued unabated for 3 more weeks. Every night as we drove back to our rental cabin, we marveled at how much we had accomplished that day. 

It was a good counterbalance. For a month, I had meticulously categorized all the things I could no longer do. Now the tide was shifting. We were logging 20,000 steps (ten miles) a day even though we rarely left the property. We lugged boxes and furniture I would have sworn I couldn’t lift. After dinner, we’d collapse into bed exhausted, and yet every morning we returned reinvigorated. 

The hotel gradually opened. Ryan arrived and took over. Pat and I decided we needed a break, drove across country, and spent ten days in Charlottesville. It’s where I am now, writing this post as thunderstorms rumble through town and the relentless heat finally breaks. 

Pat has headed on to Michigan. I’ll fly up there tomorrow to join him. Ten days later, we’ll return to Montana. Sometime in August, we’ll meander east. In early September, I’ll go to Austin for a few weeks to watch our daughter’s dog. September 21st, we head to Paris. By Thanksgiving, we’ll return to Virginia.

Somedays it feels like a lot, but my goal for the remainder of the year is to push myself, to drive more frequently, to continue to walk almost everywhere we go. In the hotel, I eschew the elevator and run up and down the stairs. I have a writing project that I’ve mentally fiddled with for quite some time and will hopefully launch soon, if only for myself.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve caught myself whistling—while reading or walking or just lying in bed. Today, as I passed the elevator on my floor, a man was stepping inside, so I ran down the stairs in this weirdly competitive game I play of me versus elevator. As I raced down the stairs, I noticed I was whistling. It felt so good, I started to laugh.

—————————————————————-

PS. If you have Instagram and want to follow Ryan’s progress, here you go: The Westbound.

Categories: Ruminations

Tags: Montana, nomadic retirement, The Westbound Hotel, the world inbetween, west Yellowstone