Day 5

July 28, 2005 2 PM (Written offline, posted August 1st.)

Forgot to charge the computer’s battery, so this will be short.

I’m typing this from the passenger’s seat in Wisconsin. Today I saw the Mississippi for the first time. I was not prepared for how excited I was about that. After hearing about it all my life, mainly from Mark Twain, it was awesome to actually see it glittering blue against the green banks.

Last night I started to get a little moody about getting so close to the cities. I felt scared and nervous about starting work soon. Today I’m still a little resistant to be in the Midwest, but at least it isn’t completely foreign. I lived in Ohio for 3 ½ years while in school. (The other ½ was spent in Dublin, Ireland.) So I guess part of the resistance is that I feel like I’ve already done this. On the other hand, we’re going way past Oberlin and into something I’ve never done before.

This morning I got a huge chunk of driving done. U. was sleeping. I love driving when my passenger, especially someone I'm in charge of somehow, is sleeping. I'm a little surprised I felt that way. I would attribute that particular feeling of protecting someone to a man for some reason. Women have tons of opportunities the rest of the time to feel nurturing and protective of people, but the fact remains… that’s the feeling I had while I was driving.

It reminds me of a Charlie Brown cartoon I once read when Charlie Brown is lamenting that when you are a kid you can sleep in the back seat while your parents drive. But someday you’re older and you can’t sleep in the back seat anymore. The cartoon always made me quite sad, but I guess you can still sleep in the car as an adult. You just have to take turns.

My favorite painting in the Cleveland museum was wall size. It was as though you are looking through the eyes of the driver of a car over at a woman sitting in the passenger seat. She is just looking ahead at the landscape, kind of glazed over as you get on a long road trip. I could see the love through the artist’s/driver’s eyes.