The Halfway Point
I’ve got the drive from Kansas City to Quitman down pat. From Kansas to Texas in a day behind the wheel. Give or take a few klicks, it’s 475 miles and I figure I’ll get an exact measurement on my next trip. In fact, I’ll check my exact mileage on the way down and stay alert to find the exact mid-point on my way back … something to kill time and mark distance. Something for the brain to do while my butt goes numb. Like watching for the odometer to roll over from five nines to a one and five zeroes … something I missed on last my drive to Texas. Who knows? Maybe numbness traveled up my spinal cord all the way to my aforementioned brain.
My dad marvels that I can do the trip with no apparent after-effects. I’ve learned not to mention the soreness in my after-effect because he doesn’t need me pointing out the obvious and that kind of comment makes my mother frown in the manner I’ve known my whole life. No one cares about my after-effect so I stay mum about my bum.
Some wonder why I drive in lieu of flying. Normal people fly places and to spend a whole day behind the wheel seems like a poorly thought out plan. Here’s my reasoning: I’m already an hour from my own airport and by the time I pad the time needed to board the plane to jump through all the security hoops at the airport and stand in the cattle lines waiting to get to my seat and jockey for my allotted skimpy overhead storage, I would be almost to Oklahoma before the plane could lift off the runway. The flight’s not all that long, but then I’d have to rent a car and drive two more hours to get to my folks’ house. See what I mean, it’s one or the other and I wouldn’t save a dime or the time that would tilt flying over driving. So I drive.
It’s eight hours of driving if you don’t stop for anything other than emptying one tank and filling the other. “Making good time” is accomplished by eating a burger behind the wheel, but only when the gas tank needs filling. Neither my wife nor my kids want to do this, so of course, if they’re along, it’s a nine-hour drive.
Alone, I bring a couple of books on tape to listen to along with a mix of blues and either Clapton or Los Lonely Boys or both to add a good rhythm to the drive. I open the sunroof and turn up the sound and try not to drive faster than the troopers will allow.
Here’s the other trick I use: I don’t think of the trip as a whole, only in measured segments. Kansas City to Joplin. Joplin to Big Cabin. Big Cabin to Muskogee. Muskogee past the lake district to McAlester. The Indian Nation Turnpike where I can zoom along at 75 mph or better to Hugo and across the state line. State line to Paris. Paris to Sulphur Springs. Then the final half hour includes crossing the best bass fishing lake in Texas and into Quitman. Not much of a trick but necessary to keep the boredom from turning into despair.
Halfway points are powerful business, don’t you know? Most of my friends would claim they’re at the halfway point in life although if we were to apply some scientific method to study this issue, we’d learn all too late that we can see the sign markers for halfway in our rearview mirrors - we just don’t know it yet.
Halfway through a semester is marked by mid-terms. Halfway through a round of golf is a driveby to the clubhouse and maybe a quick sandwich before teeing it up again on Hole Ten. Halfway through the summer is a solstice but hardly noticable to the average person.
I’m halfway through my sabbatical this week. Where did it go, this first half? Overly critical questions bubble up in my brain asking me whether I’ve done half of what I intended to do. Have I read enough? Have I written a single blessed word as I said I would? Have I rested enough? If this is halfway in time, but not halfway in accomplishment, what rest will there be in the last six and a half weeks?
In my readings, I’ve learned there is a whole rich field of psychology dealing with halfway points. Mostly in life, careers, and family. Almost all of it is fought in the soul and in the brain.
Here’s my promise … I won’t vow I’ll get all the things done I claimed I’d do. Sabbaticals are about breaking free, not about producing more “things.” If I write, I write. If I read book after book after book, so be it. If I study all I said I’d like to study, put a big gold star after my name and pat me on the head.
In the language of the sabbath woven into the heart of a sabbatical, there’s no shame in slowing down to rest and recharge. Sabbaticals aren’t really about any of those things, they’re about rekindling the fire. That’s what I will pay attention to in these less-than-seven weeks ahead.