Man you trippin' part 2

Long drive straight across northern Pennsylvania on Interstate 80, then I-90 around Cleveland and Toledo, and up I-75 to Ann Arbor. A long day of weird emotions and memories and that strange pull to the Twin Cities. I arrived in Ann Arbor around sunset, checked in to a strange, suburban guesthouse run by an older Punjabi man who had just gone through a terrible divorce—his guesthouse was his way of "trying to take away the awful pain by bringing kindness and hospitality to others." I washed the road off of me and went downtown. 

Downtown Ann Arbor was fun, hip and pretty cool, as I had often heard it was. Everything, and I do mean everything, reminded me of the person I was not with. I spent a couple hours in the bookstore, tears occasionally welling up in my eyes. It was a very rough night, emotionally. It was a strong message from the universe that I was definitely in no shape for any kind of Platonic visit. My sadness, nostalgia, constant desire to share things, constant missing were all very strong messages. 

I hit the road early the next day. At this time of the trip, I was still going to bed at about 9 or 10 at night and getting up at 5. The terrible anxiety and insomnia of the life I left behind in Tempe was still running my sleep clock. I drove across Michigan, around Chicago, and continued west. And then north, up through Madison, WI, to Eau Claire. As I headed toward Minnesota, I idly checked to see what would be available for lodging in the Twin Cities. Some of the places I had stayed on the five previous indelible visits there were available. It was strange to hover there in a kind of limbo. I even thought to myself that I could just go on my own, as a way of grieving. Just stay for a night or two and revisit some places and really say goodbye. 

All of that receded more and more as I got closer, and I discovered in myself an intense self protective spirit, and the phrase "you haven't been asked, you haven't been invited" kept running through me. I began to realize that I really wanted to be invited. I wanted to be asked. But I had not been, and I would not be, for entirely understandable reasons, and only if I were, would I venture back to Minneapolis and St. Paul. "Why not just go where you're invited from now on? Why not stop trying to invite yourself and just wait to be invited?" It was powerful and very painful. But, only an hour and half east, I turned and headed up Wisconsin state route 53, at Eau Claire, directly north to Duluth. 

Of course, I had never been to Duluth before. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I kind of senitmnetally deeply fell in love with it—I realized afterward a couple things—first, it's kind of like a midwestern Allentown, old industrial skyline, brick, smokestacks, but on goddamn Lake Superior, which was amazing; second, I wasn't consciously aware of it at the time, but Minnesota was a proxy for U, because she has absorbed many Minnesotan ways in her time there, and just being in a cool, young, interesting town in Minnesota felt like some weird piece of her. I messaged U and told her I was in Duluth, and stupidly mansplained what a family friendly place it would be for her to take a day trip or a long weekend. She informed me of course she had been there, yeah it was nice, time for another trip sometime maybe, have fun. I wandered on the lake walk, was amazed by Lake Superior, had my heart broken open by the vast water and sky, the perfect summer breeze off the lake, the couples and families out walking and enjoying each other's company, love locks and evening light in July. Minnesota is so very beautiful.

When I woke the next day, I was glad to be heading north, away from the impossible ideas, away from any possibilities of any kind. I realized that being in proximity to the Twin Cities had been weighing on me more than I had acknowledged. The decision having been made, and my own new baseline of just waiting to be invited, felt like a relief. I decided to head up to Lake Kabetogama in Voyageurs National Park, and camp in the Minnesota State Forest campground there. The drive north through the north woods opened me up even more. I had moved beyond certain urban limits and certain inner tensions and had begun to head into a more free, more wide open inner acceptance, through a land of soft beauty.