Early Travels

I got out the map and routed my journey. The first place I ever wanted to travel was not Nepal, or Morocco or Peru, it was Salisbury. Not the Salisbury in England, but a small nondescript suburb just across the political boundary of the industrial town I grew up in. I was ten, or thereabouts, and wanted to see what was on the other side of that imaginary line on my county map.

I set out for several miles that day, passing blocks of row homes, across the lumpy sidewalks, uplifted and crumbling from the maple tree roots growing underneath. I got to the park and laid my map out on the grass to double check the rest of the way. There was one potential hazard, but, or so I thought, I had successfully contained it when I was planning the way. Hamilton Street was a dangerous throughfare. It may as well have been a storm swollen river. The map, and why would it be wrong, showed the highway narrowing and dribbling out to an ordinary city street which I would simply cross.

I came to the intersection and found my map reading skills lacking. One tributary of the highway indeed did transform into a lightly trafficked city street, but the main way veered to the left. There was no way around it. I would have to cross. To make matters worse I would have to do so illegally. A no pedestrian crossing sign was clearly displayed.

I took a deep breath and continued. I got to the other side. I like to imagine that in doing so I set the stage for what I would become. In some alternative universe good sense would get the better of me and I would fold up my map, head home, make it in time for dinner, do my homework, meet a nice girl, get married and set up a plasma tv with surround sound in the rec room. Fin.

But I got to the other side and the last several blocks were predictably anticlimactic. I crossed the road, that I vaguely remember as East Texas Blvd, that demarcated the end of the city and the beginning of Salisbury. The weather, the culture, the look of the houses, the make of the cars, everything was virtually the same on this side of the boulevard, but I was elated anyway. I made it. I was somewhere else. And if I were not already late for dinner, I would have continued on to the next imaginary line on my map. Written 4/4/06