For Adventure Have Dropped

Yesterday we did the most ambitious travel we’ve done since the Covid quarantine began:  We went to the neighboring state of Connecticut.  Our standards for adventure have dropped precipitously.  My older one thought to rendezvous with a high school friend and her boyfriend and spend the say on a boat on a lake near Danbury.  We wrestled with this.  Is a boat ride with a small group of people safe?  In the end we all decided it would likely be alright. 

There at the Echo Lake Marina we were uncharacteristically early.  The road in from 84 was over-marked with warnings to say beneath the speed limit and I uncharacteristically decided to take them at their word: “Obey or Pay.”  The sign was literally posted as such.  We parked in a place we probably shouldn’t have and waited.  Across the street was a man who looked like Patrick Star of Sponge Bob fame, with a cooler in his hand.  He wasn’t wearing a mask.  Neither was anyone else.  He bumped into another such trapezoidial shaped man, who also wore shades and who was also bearing a cooler with drinks.  Neither looked like they wanted to be told about masks, and I thought for a while about my countrymen. 

From there, my younger one and my wife headed on into the Constitution State.  The only Ikea open for miles around is in New Haven.  My little one was convinced she needed a new bookshelf for her room and found the Swedish name for what she wanted.  A “rising junior” we suggested and she wasn’t opposed to visiting the Yale campus as long as we were there.  And if time permitted, we may as well head on to my alma mater as well, up in Middletown.

Deflated certainly to see hapless people snaking around in the parking lot, waiting for a chance to enter the huge facility.  We took our place and tried to make the best of it.  I had my copy of “A Cabin Behind the Cedars” by Charles Chestnut and made some good progress there in the sun and then in the shade and then back in the sun as we plodded along until we were finally admitted in. 

Up at Wesleyan it was a bit less dramatic from the last time I’d visited three years ago with my older one.  That time I hadn’t been back ‘on-campus’ for near thirty years and it all seemed rather jewel-like and petite.  This time I knew which way to lead the tour.  I knew what I wanted to show, from up on Foss Hill.  But quietly I was struck by how frequently my subconscious had used this hill, that dorm, the building over yonder to create a stage-set for my dreams.  I only really lived in this area for nine months or so, but it must have cut a deep grain, and when my nighttime self needs to decorate the stage on short order it regularly reaches for this patch here. 

Monday, 07/06/20