Going Back

I walked through the hotel doors to the beginnings of a glorious Bavarian sunrise. It was a perfect morning, with the church steeple reflecting on the still water of Lake Tegernsee and bursts of pink and yellow as the sun emerged from behind the clouds. I sat on a bench at the water’s edge and reveled in the quiet morning hour, using the changing sky as a meditation guide before the busy day got underway.

When I finally rose and turned back to the hotel, I saw what I had missed 20 minutes earlier.  In the circle in front of the entrance, stood a Porsche GT3 RS in classic Martini livery. Already at this early hour, there were five people mulling about. I gave the car an admiring perusal (I am loyal to the Blue Car, but certainly I still enjoy a look?), took a photo, and went on my way.

That GT3 RS was one of dozens, if not hundreds, of Porsches I saw in four days traveling in Bavaria – everything from this very rare and expensive street-legal Porsche racing car to Cayenne SUVs. I really can’t be sure of the number: I stopped counting on the second day (it was a bit like trying to count Subarus in Vermont) although one thought continually came to mind:

How happy the Blue Car will be to go back to Germany!

This makes me smile. Next spring, it will be 56 years since the car was lifted onto a container ship bound for the U.S. I like to think that it will feel some special jolt of recognition when it goes back and we cross the border from France to Germany sometime in March, that it will be happy and at home with its numerous kin on the country’s back roads and highways.

Going back.

I have left Bavaria, but I am still ruminating on those words. They mean different things for the Blue Car and for me, don’t they?

It’s simple for the Blue Car. It’s going back to the factory, to the birthplace of the engineering that made it what it is, to its place of production. For me, it’s another story. “Going back” is a complex matter. Technically, it means to retrace our steps. But there are often expectations attached to retracing steps. Expectations of re-living moments shaped by memories and feelings of another time, another version of ourselves and the people we know, another version of the world.

On my first road trip two years ago, I had no expectations. I wasn’t “going back” anywhere; there were no moments to re-live. For thirty years, the longest drives I took in the Blue Car were four- or five-hour day trips on the East Coast. On my cross-country trip, there was nothing to live up to, no memories to re-create. That made it all so easy: all my steps were new ones.   

Now, however, I am planning this next car journey with the U.S trip crystal clear in the rear view mirror. And my rational side is trying to keep my heart in check. I am reminding myself it’s all going to be different; I shouldn’t set too many inflated plans and unreasonable expectations.

I think we all retrace our steps at some point during our lives. Perhaps the most common “going back” involves revisiting places of childhood memories. When my boys were young, I took them for a weekend trip to Storyland in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I was full of anticipation on that excursion, anticipation fueled by strong memories. As a child, my parents took me and my two older brothers to this amusement park on one of the only long-distance family trips I remember.  Still sharp in my memory over five decades later as I was planning the trip with my kids was my sense of fascination and wonder while looking up at the Mother Goose statue near the amusement park’s entrance that loomed like a giant above tiny me. She spoke if you pushed the button next to her skirt and despite my brave brothers performing that feat, I hid behind my mother, unwilling to let the wonder of it all overrule my terror at the size of this larger-than-life nursery rhyme figure.

I bet you can guess what happened on my return. Mother Goose was a disappointing figure to adult me, only two or three times my height, her voice crackly over the speaker as my sons pushed the button and danced around her.

You really can’t go back.

I am trying to keep this in mind while planning the trip and thinking how it will all play out. Road trips, childhood amusement parks, life: it’s best to just look ahead and not retrace steps. Otherwise, my European Blue Car road trip and so many other events and adventures could be Mother Goose experiences.

I am different now. I know more about the Blue Car and myself. And I already know more ways this trip will be unique. A major difference is that I know less about the land I will be exploring and almost nothing about the native languages I will encounter. My pace will also be different. I moved almost every day on the U.S road trip, staying in a new place each night. I didn’t plan on doing that before I started, it was simply the rhythm that felt right once I got on the road. This time around, I want to keep some rhythm of my “at home” life while on the road in Europe. I think that means I will find a short-term rental most weeks and use it as a home base for day trips. This will allow me to do local shopping and cooking, provide time to write in the mornings (unless a sunrise is calling to me), and allow syncing to local rhythms. I also think staying in one place for up to a week at a time may make it easier to connect with locals, even considering language difference; while I like traveling solo, I need connections with people to feel grounded and alive.

And I am sure there will be other differences I haven’t thought about and can’t possibly know. This seems a good thing to remember. “Going back,” and retracing our steps just serves up the same old thing, very possibly cloaked in disappointment. I plan on staying focused on what “might be,” hoping this new adventure is full of new steps on untrodden ground.

The best it can possibly be.