Follow your heart… does it get more cliche than that? Not really, but there’s a reason that saying is plastered on walls and phone cases and facebook pages. There’s something about making a split second decision, taking a risk or getting sidetracked from a plan that has the ability to lead to the making of a cherished memory. On our first day on the road, we ambitiously planned to make it all the way from Portland to San Francisco, with a mid-day coffee stop in Corvallis, a college town where my friend, aunt and uncle all live. In all seriousness, I was kidding myself when I intended to only stay for an hour. We met my friend at our favorite coffee place, Tried and True. It’s your classic hipster coffee shop vibe, so of course I lapped it up, ordering my iced oat milk latte and asked them to put it in my hydroflask. We walked around downtown, taking in the lively scene of a small street fair. We sampled vegan mint brownies and sniffed home made goat milk soap and decided not to rush back to the car. It had only been three hours of driving, but the eight ahead of us seemed daunting. As long as we left by one o’clock, we would make it to San Francisco by midnight.
We spent some time sitting on the grass watching people in home made matching sack dresses playing percussion in no particular rhythm. I envied their spirit, and resisted the temptation to start banging a stick against my hydroflask. For as much as I love moving around, the idea of becoming a table-cloth wearing tambourine player really appealed to me in that moment.
We finally tore away our eyes and ears and headed towards my aunt and uncle’s house, making the same wrong turn two times. If we had learned one thing already, it was that I should never be in charge of navigation. Again, we told ourselves we would only stay for an hour, but we sat in their picture perfect backyard for six. The town where Declan grew up and my aunt and I went to high school, Bryn Athyn, is a very small church community, where everyone actually knows everyone, so we played what we call the Bryn Athyn Game. Who are your parent? Who are your grandparents? Cousins? Aunts? Uncles? Siblings? Unsurprisingly, my aunt had gone to school with a lot of Declans aunts and uncles, and even dated one. There I sat drinking my kombucha and laughing at the expressions on my uncle’s face. He’s from Long Island, so the concept of knowing every person, who they’re related to and what street they grew up on was foreign to him. For the first time ever, I had an enjoyable conversation about politics. We talked with ease about spirituality and religion. There was never a lull in conversation, I couldn’t bring myself to create one until I realized that if we stayed on that track, we would get to San Francisco at four AM.
We made it five minutes in the car before I told Declan to pull over. We followed our hearts, or rather our reptilian brains that said “an eight hour drive starting at 6pm? No thanks.” We turned around knocked on my aunt and uncles door, and they said of course we could spend the night. Then, things got a little crazy. Stay tuned for part two.