I spent a few hours on Monday driving a rented van through parts of three counties and did a very small amount of heavy lifting, but by the end of the day it felt like I had run a marathon. Ron was with me and thanks to detours (one in each of the counties we traversed) what should have been an hour and forty minute round trip was more like a two hour round trip. Unaware of the detours my GPS kept shouting out course corrections, and when I ignored her instructions said in a tone that sounded exasperated, “Recalculating.” Plus there was a self-imposed detour to stop and look at some flooring for the house next door because that is our new pastime. Still, it’s hard to believe that these activities would leave me so exhausted.
There was a time not too long ago, when driving all over creation was pretty much what I did for a living. When I worked as a sales rep for a book distributor I traveled all over eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. On a couple of occasions I even drove all over Ohio. I did this all the time until detours led me to other sources of income.
More recently, when I made the bulk of my income selling stuff on the internet I did a fair amount of driving to source new inventory. Five years ago, that ended abruptly when the entire world shut down. Another one of those detours. That was a pretty big one.
Since 2020 I’ve put very few miles on my car. I hardly every drive anywhere. It’s a big change. I used to make excursions like Monday’s journey (albeit in my own car, not a big Ford Transit van) a couple of times a week. Now, I do that once in a blue moon and it wipes me out.
I think a lot about how much the pandemic really changed my life, not necessarily in a bad or a good way, just different. Thanks to one of yesterday’s detours I drove past the community college campus where I received my first two Covid vaccinations. That journey was a round trip of less than an hour, but it was the first time I had gone any new place in so long that I remember being exhausted by the whole experience.
I think a lot about the pandemic, and wonder if we’re on the brink of another. There’s no escaping the news of bird flu. Locally flocks of migratory waterfowl have been decimated by the virus. A feral cat in our county died of bird flu, another tested positive. In a neighboring county a bald eagle died of bird flu.
Then there’s measles making a comeback in the worst possible way because too many people would rather believe conspiracy theories than science. Maybe we’ve had it too good for too long, and people have forgotten why we started relying on vaccines. Unfortunately the older generation that knows just how miraculous vaccines are and just how brutal life can be without them has been dying out. Something something those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Are there detours in our future? Who can say? Maybe it’s just a few potholes, though if they’re anything like the ginormous craters I saw Monday that some helpful individual decided to mark with hot pink spray paint (possibly a municipal worker, possibly just someone tired of replacing their tires) then I’m a bit concerned. What’s around the next bend? I wish I could tell you. Recalculating, as the GPS says.
— Alissa
Weekly Inspiration
What I’m Reading: A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
What I’m Watching: A Real Pain
What I’m Listening to: “Silent Lucidity” by Queensryche
Find out more about my books at alissagrosso.com
Find out more about my art at alissacarin.com
My apologies for the typos and such this post is almost certainly riddled with.
Creativity and Contentment 
6 responses to “Detours”
One thing lockdown did was show me how exhausting my normal routine had become. My full-time teleworking was extended by the fact that my day job moved to a new office and thus there was an additional year when we had no building to return to, and after that I only went into the office once a week. And then, 2 years ago, I retired. So I never had to go back to that insane schedule, and never wanted to. I think a lot of people experienced that, the, “Now that I have a moment to think, what kind of life have I been living, and where do I want to go from here?”
Well put, Jenn!
Detouring in life is a major part of the game…. Being able to adjust is the importance part (recalculating) !
So very true!
How ’bout that giant detour the US just took to avoid reality?
On a more humorous note, (and a true story) My buddy and I were in upper Piscataquis County many years ago and stopped at a small general store. The requisite old geezer was sitting in a rocker on the front porch. He asked us where we were headed. When we told him, he said “Ya can’t get there from here.” He paused and with a big grin, continued by explaining, “Friggin’ beavers dammed the road, and the highway crew ain’t had time to blow the dam.” We ended up driving 75 miles to get to our fishing destination. I bet no GPS known to man would have caught that impediment.
Ha ha! I love this story! Many years ago when I lived in Pennsylvania I recall a local news story about a man who received a notice from his municipality because of an unauthorized structure on his property. The structure was a beaver dam.