Go West, Old Women

The summer Dan was ill, when my days consisted of driving a half-hour each way to work, and my evenings of driving an hour each way to the hospital, I began to tell myself a story, in which our dog and I drove west.

         We lived in Upstate New York, centrally located in the middle of nowhere, as Dan used to say. Now Dan’s illness was terminal, and as I drove, and drove, I planned a meandering route across the country, for the dog and me. We would visit friends in Chicago, and Colorado Springs, and Albuquerque. The other nights we would stay in Holiday Inns, because they took dogs and they had swimming pools.

         We would proceed slowly because we would, finally, have no appointments, no obligations.

         We would drive right to the Pacific and stand at the water. The dog would bat at things in puddles while I gazed out at the horizon. After a few minutes, we would look at each other, the dog and I, and I’d ask her, What do you want to do next? 

         A friend took me out for lunch during that terrible summer, and I told her this story. Fantasies are important, she said, and I thought, No, no it’s real.

         Dan died that August, several years ago. We had been together for 25 years. But I had lived alone before him, and now once again, I became a team of one. I started this blog, 2becomes1: Widowhood for the Rest of Us,

and there I developed an essay, “10 Scary Things I Have Done Since My Husband Died,” where I listed all kinds of things I accomplished.

         I traveled by myself, to the West Coast, of course, and also to Japan, China, Russia, places I had dreamed of seeing.

         I dealt with the snake in the bathroom.

         And I sold the house that we had shared and moved west 13 miles, to Hudson, a walkable city named for the river it bordered.

         The dog who would have driven to the Pacific with me grew old, and died, and after a while I adopted another dog, a nine-year-old with the attitude of an adolescent and the name of Sizzle.

         Last June, 2018: a raw, windy day in Hudson. The air should have been mild, and sweet with the scent of roses and the promise of outdoor swimming. Instead, the damp cold seeped through my jacket and the scent recalled not the grass beach at the pond but a stormy sea, tossing the ship.

         After a brutal winter, a winter so cold and windy that I forgot to go skiing

 the spring brought no relief—nothing but acute allergies. On that June day I was walking home from CVS, having scored yet another over-the-counter medication that might help. I was wearing a jacket and hat, socks on my feet and a scarf around my neck.

         And I was freezing.

         I was freezing, and I was thinking, I can’t take this anymore.

         Arriving home, I greeted Sizzle and went upstairs to my laptop. I Googled “San Diego, condominium, $250,000.”

         And what a sweet place Google showed me! Swimming pool! Patio! Carport! I tried to be skeptical: I looked at each photo twice. I studied the description, trying to read between the lines.

         Then I sent the link to my friend Tamara in San Diego. She knows everything.

         “Is this in a bad neighborhood?” I asked.

         She replied within the hour: “Not a bad neighborhood,” she said, “but it’s near Rose Creek, so it could be stinky sometimes. Here, try this one.”

         She attached a link for another condo, even sweeter, at $250,000. Swimming pool! Balcony! Garage!

         And I thought, I can do this.

         I thought, there’s no rule that says I have to suffer this stupid weather.

         And, I thought, I have time for one more adventure.

         Moving west started when I told myself I couldn’t do it: I didn’t have enough money, or my parents were too old to leave, or I was too old for such a big move.

         But moving west had stayed in my head, and in my heart, since I had comforted myself with a story years before. It wasn’t a fantasy, it was a dream.

         In February of this year, Sizzle and I left Hudson

 in sub-zero temperatures. 

 I had sold my house and bought a condo in San Diego.

 I had given away 22 cartons of books and 95 T-shirts.

         We drove west,

 Sizzle and I,

 just ahead of two winter storms. People would say, go to this museum, or that national park. And I would think, Honey, I have an 11-year-old dog in the car and it’s 11 degrees outside.       

         I drove.

         We did sing. I taught Sizzle some folk songs.

        

Sun’s gonna shine . . .

        

 . . . on my back door someday!

          Winds gonna come . . .

          . . . blow my blues away!

         Good job, Sizzle!

          (giggles) Yeah—

         Of course, I talked to her.

         “Look, Sizzle, the St. Louis arch!”

         “Yeah, Deb. Where’s the St. Louis hotel.”

        

St. Louis Woman

We didn’t stay in Holiday Inns, because bring-fido-dot-com didn’t list them, and in the final rush to get out of town, I forgot to pack my bathing suit.

         Missouri to Kansas: “Look, Sizzle, the trees and grass are all glistening with ice!”

         “HALP!”

         “God, Sizzle, this road looks like Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.

 Without the snow. Do you think all those trucks off the road were driven by men?”

          “Hilp.”

         I was careful about gas, until the day I wasn’t. Leaving Winslow, Arizona, I thought, we’ve got enough to make it to the next station.

         Well, we did, but what I remember of that drive is rocks and dirt and scrub brush and dirt and rocks, as I watched those little boxes on the gas gauge disappear, and my terror as the gauge blinked angrily at me and I still hadn’t seen a single human being—until, like a mirage, appeared a general store with two pumps.

         No cards, cash and carry, and as I paid the man, I made a weak joke about coasting in on my stupidity.

Judy and me with our high school yearbook

         “Well,” he said, “if running out of gas is the worst thing to happen to you . . . you’re all right.”

         We did visit our friends in Chicago, and  Colorado Springs and

3 gals in Corrales

 Corrales, New Mexico and also in Boulder

Sizzle petted in Boulder, CO

and Durango.

         

We didn’t drive straight to the Pacific but to our new home. The furniture wouldn’t arrive for two weeks, but I put Sizzle’s bed on the balcony and she stretched out in the sun. February 15th, still winter. Sizzle insisted that I keep the door open to the balcony—re-creating the car, I think—so I wore a fleece jacket, not a bathing suit.

        

I bought a work table, borrowed a chair, and got myself connected.  

         We had done it. Ready to change climates, to live where I had friends but no memories, and ready for one more adventure, these two old women packed up and drove west.