CT Blue

Just a little over a week ago I was on the losing end of an encounter with a turtle in the relative wilds of Vermont.

I would have faced a thousand turtles to avoid my experiences today, when I voluntarily undertook the task of driving my son and half his worldly possessions to his new apartment in Brooklyn. New York is a wonderful place, but one should go by train, bus, ferry or horseback. To me, driving into New York is a little like descending into Hades. Like Orpheus, I made the descent reluctantly; like the damned in Dante’s poem, I abandoned hope when entering.

We left at 6:00 in the morning, station wagon packed with stuff, mapquest directions in hand. Neither of us had ever seen our destination before. On the trip out I duly noted that just South of the exit to the Merritt Parkway, due to construction in both directions, I-95 narrowed to one lane in both directions. At 7:15 in the morning it wasn’t a problem, but I decided then that prudence dictated a return trip on the Merritt.

With my son as co-pilot (God refused to make the trip-I was going to hell after all) I managed to get to our destination, but it was then that the fun began. The other half of his worldly possessions were in storage, which we proceeded to retrieve. He swore to all the gods that the stuff had all fit in his friend’s small sedan when he originally stored it. Apparently, it had divided and multiplied since then, because we were soon careening through the unfamiliar streets of Brooklyn, every inch of our capacious station wagon crammed with stuff, with no rear vision and my right mirror obscured by the guitar on my son’s lap. We managed to grope our way back to his apartment, when (apparently even the damned have some good luck) we actually found a parking space in front of his building.

Again, like Orpheus, I found the trip back harder than the descent. Navigating solo the highways around New York, surrounded by maniac natives, is not my idea of a good time. I had my mapquest directions, but was well aware that if I made one false move I’d be stuck in the bowels of New York, or whatever god forsaken borough I was passing through. Unlike Orpheus I didn’t look back, and I made it out, to the relative purgatory of the Merritt Parkway.

Resurrection is a wonderful experience, but even better is the perverse pleasure one feels when enjoying the misfortunes of others. The Germans call it schadenfreude, I believe. Such were my feelings as, after leaving the Merritt I tooled North on 95. Across the divider, I observed south bound 1-95, a virtual parking lot from Milford to New London. In my imagination, I observed the northbound folks who were stretched from the New York border to Milford, waiting to enter the funnel I had observed in the morning and avoided this afternoon. Suddenly, life was good.

Despite this uplifting end to my journey, I arrived home physically drained and even more mentally dead than usual. For today at least, I will not inflict my vain (political) ravings on a largely indifferent world.

PS: For more mundane reasons, light or no posting tomorrow as well. The Charter Revision Commission has a meeting tomorrow, and I must do my duty.