Last night, just as Kathy and I were returning to town after our big trip out east , she told me something that left me absolutely thunderstruck: We were gone for 8 days- the longest we’ve been gone from home since we went to Europe more than 13 years ago. No wonder it felt like we had been gone for three months! (And now I much better understand why she has lamented over the years how our getaways were so brief. For me, who majored in Rush-Rush-Rush, it felt normal and fine to pop out of town and rush right back. Now that we have finally managed to get more emphatically out of town, I realize much better what she (and I) have been missing out on over all these years.)
But it wasn’t just a matter of us being gone longer or going farther. I think that by driving ourselves out to Philadelphia and back again, we had a much more vivid sense of Getting Away… versus the more typical scenario of hopping aboard a plane in Milwaukee and magically touching down in some other city a couple of hours later. I am SO glad that Kathy insisted that we drive on this trip; there is nothing like driving all the way across Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania – twice – to feel like you’re a long way from home, in the best sense of the word.
Speaking of my gratitude to Kathy, I am very grateful that she welcomed the chance for this trip to include some visits with far-flung relatives of mine. Our primary intention was to visit Steve, Scott and Henry in Philadelphia (we had not yet managed to visit them there), which coincidentally ended up including some time with Dad and Sonja as well – but this trip ended up including visits three of my five cousins who are known in our family as The Northern Bergs. (Their father, Paul, was my dad’s older brother.) What a joy to visit Solveig in Pittsburgh, Sara in NYC, and Kristian at State Central, PA- home of Penn State, where Kris teaches. The encounters were relatively brief but great fun all the same.
And speaking of Great Fun, we were also part of what turned out to be a delicious surprise. As we planned this trip to NYC, it turned out that Kathy’s sister Polly was in the midst of planning a trip that would overlap on the calendar – and one way or another the two sisters concocted the scheme of surprising our niece Lorelai by “unexpectedly” crossing paths somewhere in Manhattan and culminating with all of us attending the same performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. The rendezvous ended up happening at a predetermined time at Lindy’s, an iconic restaurant famous for their cheesecake. We were there at an outdoor table at 5:20, innocently sipping our diet cokes when Polly, Mark and Lorelai happened by at 5:30. The look of sheer delight and wonderment on Lorelai’s face and the way she ran into Kathy’s awaiting arms was a spectacular highlight.
And that’s saying something about a trip that was full of spectacular highlights. In Philadelphia, we got to see the Liberty Bell (in its beautiful new home) and the home of Betsy Ross (complete with a wonderful dramatic encounter with the famous seamstress herself, thanks to a very skilled impersonator who made it feel like we were actually talking to the woman who made our first flag!) In Lancaster County, we actually took a horse-drawn buggy ride to a real Amish farm. And in NYC, we explored Central Park, shopped in Greenwich Village, visited the world famous Strand Bookstore, and saw four amazing shows: Cinderella, Pippin, The Great Comet of 1812, and Vanja, Sonia, Misha, and Spike (starring David Hyde Pierce)- each splendid in its own right.
And we ate some amazing food along the way …. including scrumptious homemade muffins at Solveig and Ty’s … delectable grilled chicken with pesto at Kristian and Kay’s …. a sandwich in Philadelphia called The Dickens that was roasted turkey, dressing, and cranberry sauce in one incredible sandwich …. superb beer cheese soup (with grated carrots in it) at a place called Brothers …. delicious Shepherd’s Pie at an Irish pub in NYC called O’Gunney’s… and on and on. And even our more humdrum meals, grabbed on the road or on the fly, were at places we don’t have around here, like Roy Rogers or Bob Evans or Europa Cafe. In fact, it was Kathy who noted that we didn’t set foot in a McDonald’s until the morning of our last day on the road, when we did a quick McD’s for breakfast.
As for our time on the road (1800+ miles) we spent some of it listening to music … a mix of Sirius, Pandora, and a couple of self-burned disks off of iTunes … but probably spent even more miles listening to podcasts of Fresh Air, This American Life, the TED Radio Hour, and Wait…Wait…Don’t Tell Me. And when Kathy was driving, I spent at least a little bit of time reading “The Big Disconnect” in preparation for a morning show interview I had to record this morning. But I have to say that except for reading that book, I found myself utterly incapable of doing any work. I tried putting together the program for my upcoming faculty voice recital … tried polishing up a choral piece I’ve been commissioned to compose …. tried getting a head’s start on my next Journal of Singing column …. tried finishing the lyrics to a fun song I’m writing about why I like music so much …. but again and again I found that my brain just wouldn’t show up for the gig. It was on vacation, along with the rest of me, and I think that’s why I came back from these eight days feeling so incredibly refreshed and replenished.
And it’s a good thing, too, because the rest of 2013 looks very challenging …. with a faculty voice recital to sing on September 8th, voice recitals by three of my Carthage students to oversee, a Mozart opera workshop to co-direct, and a production of “Beauty and the Beast” at the RTG to remount. And that doesn’t even count an opera (Gianni Schicchi) coming up in January and a little show called Les Miserables following it in the spring. So I am incredibly fortunate that I am approaching the end of the summer with my batteries fully charged, feeling so joyous, so grateful, so ridiculously blessed.
I sincerely hope that you can say the same.
pictured above: Kathy and I in New York City’s Central Park.