The Thrill of the Not-Yet: 91 Days and Counting

I pulled onto the grass at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum for Porsche Day in July and cut the engine. It was a beautiful morning—clear skies, the hum of engines all around, sunlight glinting off rows of polished hoods. As I coaxed my goldendoodle Leo from the back of the Blue Car (where he can happily lie down and still see out the windows), an acquaintance walked over and smiled.

“Hi! I thought you were on your trip!”

I was just about to respond when a couple stopped to give Leo’s head a rub.

“Are you leaving for Europe soon?”

This is the problem with writing about my road trip so many months in advance: it creates confusion. I sigh, then answer these questions with a smile.

I don’t blame people. My adventure begins on February 15 next year, when I fly out of Logan Airport here in Boston, but I started writing about this trip eight months ago, when I published “A Glimmer of an Idea” on March 27th. The trip was almost a year away.

Who does that?

What was I thinking?

Back in March, despite my best intentions, writing took a back seat to everything else happening in my life. Announcing to the world that I would publish an essay every week was my way of creating accountability. I said it aloud; now I had to follow through. But most of all, these weekly essays quickly became a way to feed my love for anticipating something down the road.

In my mind, if I can anticipate this trip for almost a year, that’s a magic conjuring trick that makes the trip last a year. The enjoyment stretches far beyond the moments I will actually be on the road and spills into all the ordinary days leading up to it.

Just call me the Queen of Anticipation.

When I was studying architecture in Denmark, my host family had Royal Copenhagen china, and I fell in love with the classic blue fluted pattern. To my 20-year-old self, the porcelain held everything I aspired to: grown-up elegance, Danish design sensibility, and the deep connection I felt to Knud and Jytte and their family that summer. Counting every kroner to make it to the final day (just like rationing rolls of film), I couldn’t afford even one piece at the time.

A year later, back in the States, I bought my first teacup (minus the saucer) at an antique shop in Brooklyn. And so began decades of joyful anticipation. I buy Royal Copenhagen china one piece at a time, mostly used, online or, ideally, unearthed in secondhand shops in Copenhagen when I return to visit. Eventually I found a saucer to match that first cup. My kids still joke that our holiday dinners had to be small when they were young and the china dictated the menu. Soup? Sorry, not this Thanksgiving. I only have five soup bowls, and eight people are coming to dinner.

Is this all silly? I suppose so. But what’s wrong with harmless silly? I stretched the joy of the hunt—those plates, those cups and saucers, and yes, especially those elusive soup bowls—over three decades (and still counting). That’s a long arc of enjoyment sparked by that first one simple piece of porcelain.

My strategy, rooted in my love of anticipation, also allowed me to enjoy my morning Earl Grey in that lone cup even when money was tight. I couldn’t stroll into Bloomingdale’s for a full place setting, but one piece at a time? That I could do. Now, decades later, yes, I can afford to finish my set but where would the fun be in that? My (still incomplete) set of china holds far more than food and drink—collectively, it holds a multitude of stories. I didn’t know it then, but beginning that collection in my early twenties was the start of my lifelong relationship with anticipation.

I thought of this recently as I hosted 18 for Rosh Hashanah dinner (in an emergency measure, I mixed in my everyday plates with the china). I welcomed guests into the common lobby I share with two other units in my building, and we had to push past the boxes and padded envelopes piled against the steps.

I navigate a small cardboard mountain in my lobby every week, and almost none of the packages are mine. While I admit that online shopping has its satisfactions, the instant thrill of it feels hollow—too easy, too numbing. I’m not interested in the quick dopamine hit of clicking “buy now” and watching a parade of boxes appear at my door. Whether it’s the lure of one-click shopping or the prospect of a rambling European road trip, I’m resisting the urge to “Amazon Prime” my way through life.

My penchant for delayed gratification serves another purpose: it reins in my naturally impulsive character. Jump now, think later. I am wary of processes that can satisfy all my instant needs---me in my PJs, with a cup of tea in one hand and the computer mouse in the other. That seems like dangerous terrain.

It’s nice to know I’m not just a sentimental Queen of Anticipation. Modern neuroscience links delayed gratification (and my year of road-trip anticipation) with greater activation of the prefrontal cortex—how sexy that sounds!—the region of the brain that supports reasoning, self-control, and ultimately long-term well-being. Who knew my slow-motion china purchases were so beneficial? Anticipation releases dopamine when we look forward to something pleasurable, which increases feelings of joy and satisfaction. No wonder anticipating this trip feels like its own kind of adventure: I’ve been on a dopamine high for eight months now.

Despite these benefits, I am also aware of the dangers inherent in my delight in delayed gratification and anticipation. At that same Porsche show this summer, after I explained that my trip was still far away, someone asked, “Aren’t you worried you’re setting up expectations you can’t possibly meet—for yourself and for everyone living vicariously through you?”

And that, of course, is the real question.

Over these months of preparing and writing, have I created larger-than-life expectations about the trip? Have I fallen victim to the tyranny of expectations, to imagined perfection? Will my future dinner table—with every last piece of china finally matching for 14 or even 16 guests—be a disappointment (to me and to Martha Stewart)? And can my upcoming road trip ever be as enjoyable as this long, luxurious stretch of anticipation, preparation, and musing that precedes it?

I think I’ve mostly sidestepped this trap by avoiding the habit of imagining the specific end result. For my road trip, I’m staying in the high-level, big-sky dreaming stage of “I am going,” rather than falling into the mental rabbit hole of “When I get there, it will feel exactly like this…”

There’s something profoundly wonderful about this hazy form of anticipation—about keeping the outlines soft, resisting the urge to fix a future experience in place, and simply enjoying the delicious wait. The key, I think, is to remain grounded in the present, not overly attached to outcomes or overly polished future fantasies. Going with the flow.

My expectations are loose enough that almost anything can fit into my idea of “the road trip”—even getting lost in a village where I don’t speak the language, finding locked museum doors because the season has ended, or spending three unplanned days in a town I didn’t know existed so the Blue Car can get some TLC from a local mechanic.

Today is November 16th. I am no longer a year out from my trip. In just 91 days, I will board a plane for Europe. And despite all my talk of hazy anticipation and soft-focus endings, I’ll confess: I’ve made my first reservation in Europe—and it’s an exciting one.

But I’ll save the details for next week’s essay. And I hope the week ahead brings you a little anticipation of your own.