This past weekend I did some traveling. I left home Friday evening and came home Saturday night. I went to bed very late Friday night, and got up early Saturday morning. So, I left for a 2 1/2 hour journey home, after dark, alone, tired, and with the beginnings of a headache. As I got into the car I was conscious, in a vague sort of way, that things weren’t stacking up in my favor. During the day the trip home would have seemed like no big deal. Now it seemed like a difficult task, and it felt like such a labor to think about all the turns I would need to make ahead of time.
In general, I am indifferent about traveling. So long as I don’t do too much of it, I don’t mind it. There are plenty of things worse, in my book, than driving a few hours on the highway. That said, I don’t get my thrills out of traveling, either. I’m a home body, and too much traveling begins to really wear. Also, I loathe traveling in the city. Open country or the highway–fine. But the crowded and complex streets of cities–they cause me to stress out.
My journey Saturday night was a 2 1/2 hour trip, mostly on interstate highway 81, heading south. Halfway through my journey I would have to pass through Syracuse. Getting into the car and noting my state of mental exhaustion, I considered that I would have to be very careful if I didn’t want to make a wrong turn and end up wandering on darkened roads, trying to find my way home. Getting home, under normal circumstances, wasn’t hard. This was why I found it noteworthy that contemplating the ride home felt like some laborious chore. Not a good sign.
It’s basically a straight shot home, I told myself. If you can get out of town and onto 81 and then get through Syracuse, you’re home free. There is nothing more for you to get confused on. Remember to get off at the right exit, and you know the rest of the way home like the back of your hand. Hang on to your head, and you’ll get home without any trouble.
Following this advice, I acted with deliberate concentration and made all of the proper turns and reached the highway. Next point in the journey was Syracuse, but that was a good hour away. I had time to pass away as I traveled through the night.
When traveling for long distances, whether in day or night, I have one of two problems: either keeping myself occupied, or keeping myself awake. If I’m not stressing out trying to drive in the city, I find driving rather boring, and mind numbing. This means that if I don’t come up with something to occupy myself, my mind can wander off to thinking or day dreaming. Wandering into thought isn’t a good thing to do while driving, and neither is sleeping.
It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I’ve found that I sing in the car to combat bored day dreaming.. Yes, I am one of those freaks who sings in the car. Alas, but I think I fulfill the caricature of that man riding down the road alone, bellowing at the top of his lungs. I sing loud, like the star of an opera. I don’t sing to the radio. I sing songs that are in my head–either songs that I’ve made up, or the bits of songs that I can actually remember. The key is that they can be sung loudly and with considerable gusto.
Perhaps singing in the car could be considered an edifying and self-improving activity if it made up some coherent whole. Unfortunately, I don’t think I remember all of the words to a single song. For most songs I remember the refrain, and maybe the first verse. Maybe a little more. So I make up for this by singing what I do remember, over and over and over again. Sometimes I get louder and more forceful as I continue to repeat, as if somehow the sheer volume will somehow trigger my mind into remembering how the rest of the song goes.
This is how I started off down the highway toward home: singing bits of song at the top of my lungs. I usually get stuck on one song bit for awhile and sing it with unending repetition until I finally get so sick of hearing myself sound like a broken record that I exert conscious effort to scrounge up something else, anything else, to sing.
For a while I can enjoy my own singing ability. Five minutes of any passenger listening to me belt out the reprise of a song in my best hearty baritone and they will be clawing up the windows to get out, or at least to be put out of their misery. This is why I restrain myself, and only sing under my breath (if at all) when I have passengers. But, even for myself, after a while my repetition starts to annoy, and all the singing can wear out my vocal cords.
I guess it was a sign of my weariness that I gave up singing before I reached Syracuse. It was obvious I needed something to keep my mind on the present, I switched on the radio. I’m not normally a radio person . . . I guess for the weird reason that if I’m not going to be shaking the glass in the windows with my own melodious solo, then I want peace and quiet.
I found something on the radio that I could stand to listen to, and made it to Syracuse without trouble.
Heading into Syracuse, I knew I had tricky driving ahead of me. Passing straight through a city on a highway doesn’t sound like a very difficult thing, but I have a particular problem with Syracuse. As 81 goes through downtown Syracuse it has a lot of merging and splitting off ramps. Unlike the traditional exits where all traffic exits and merges from the right, going through Syracuse there are lanes merging on from both the right and the left. The number of lanes is constantly changing, and you have to keep an eye on what lane you are in so that you don’t accidentally take an exit. During daylight, when properly rested, this is manageable. Not being a frequent driver in the city, there is always the danger I will misread or misunderstand a sign and so take the wrong road.
But, I’ve always had particular trouble in one spot when heading south on 81 through Syracuse. For most of the trip through Syracuse there is a line merging here from the left, and then there from the right. A lane exiting on the right at this point, and one exiting at the left somewhere up ahead. However, there is one point where the road splits in a Y. Two lanes go to the left, and two lanes go to the right. Perhaps you are familiar with this spot if you’ve ever traveled 81 south through Syracuse. Every time, without fail, this spot gives me a brain freeze. In my poor little mind 81 can’t split. A lane might come on at the right, or break away from the right . . . a lane might come on from the left, or break away at the left, but if you stay on the straight and narrow you will stay on 81. This is what my little mind likes to think, but it isn’t the case 100% of the time. The fact that there is an equal split of two lanes going to the left and two lanes going to the right causes me difficulty, but this problem is compounded because 81 is the two right most lanes. In my mind the exits by default are on the right and the main road continues on the left. These factors combine to make me have a brain freeze every time I reach that fork.
There are signs clearly marking which way 81 is going, but somehow my tradition-chained brain can’t believe what I am seeing. There is a split ahead, and 81 is going to the right. My instinct is to react with the conviction that I must be misunderstanding something. For years I’ve managed. I either consulted with a passenger who assured me that yes, we were going to the right, or else double, triple, and quadruple checked the signs before finally believing what I read. However, I’ve mentioned aloud to passengers that “Sometime I’m going to mess up and take the wrong way.” This moment of doubt and confusion has become a long standing tradition. Any time I’m heading through Syracuse on 81 south I know I’m going to reach this split and I know I will have trouble figuring out which direction I’m supposed to take. Unfortunately, I still get confused every time.
Tired, and fighting with the beginnings of a headache as I went through Syracuse last Saturday night, I thought I would be smart. I stuck to the middle of the highway. Lanes merge and break away from both the right and left, but most of it occurs on the right. So when there were four lanes I traveled in the third from the right. That way I didn’t have to deal with the breaking away of the left-most, or right-most lane. Also, I didn’t have to deal with traffic that was merging from the right-most lane. A perfect set-up, I thought. All I needed to do was coast through Syracuse and I would be home.
I knew the split in the highway was coming up. Unfortunately, in my befogged state I had forgotten that the four lanes split equally into two roads, and that I had to be in the two right-most lanes. When the signs came up telling me that I wanted to stay right to remain on 81 south I figured “Yeah, I want to stay out of the left most lane. It is probably going to break away. Most likely the right most lane is going to break away too, so staying where I am is best.” Of course the divide came up very quickly out of the dark, and I was in the wrong lane. Confusion set in. The first half of my mind said “The sign says go right.” Then the second half of my mind quickly said, “No, it’s a trick! You’re reading the sign wrong. Exits always go right. Stick to the left!” If it was daylight and I had more warning, or if I was more awake, I would have had enough time to do my quadruple check and finally come to the right conclusion that I should indeed go left. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking quite fast enough to give the issue four considerations before I had to make a decision. Since I wasn’t about to go careening all over the highway as my mind vacillated back and forth in indecision, I stayed in the lane I was in (second to left most) until I could come to a firm decision on the matter.
Alas, it was just as I reached the point of no return that I realized that yes, dummy, you need to be in one of the two right-most lanes. Then I had a split second to decide if I wanted to slam on the breaks and jerk to the right and try to squeak by the cement barrier and go on my merry way. I wasn’t thinking really great, but I was thinking good enough to realize that this kind of thinking was classic text book example of how to end up smashed against the cement dividers, or cause a multi-car pile up. So I continued on down the wrong road, feeling like some sense of prophetic doom had finally been sealed. I had, at long last, taken the wrong road. Now I had to get myself out of the mess.
If you take the wrong exit off a highway out in the good old open country, it is easy to swing around and get back on. The same can’t be said in the city. Heading down the two lane road into Syracuse, I had no idea how easy it would be to get back on. Logically, I told myself, if you get off, you can get back on. But whether that is easy, or self evident, when tired and driving in the dark, is another matter entirely. I came to the end of the road (which was basically an off ramp) I had a choice of turning either left or right, with no clear indication which direction I should go to get back on 81. Great. Turn right, I decided. That at least, was in the direction of home, the direction I wanted to go. I don’t know if I made the right decision. For all I know if I had turned left I would have come upon a ramp to get back up to 81 south.
I turned right and headed straight, trying to keep my eyes peeled for some sign pointing out how to get back on 81 while at the same time not running any lights or stop signs. I did indeed see a sign for 81. It said 81 north. So, the next turn was 81 north. What about 81 south? That was probably a different turn, I told myself. If there is a sign for 81 north, there should be another sign ahead for 81 south. Then, just as I was about to pass the street a second voice piped up in my head “How do you know the ramp for 81 south isn’t right next to 81 north. And if you got on 81 north you could at least simply back track to the next proper exit and turn around there. At least 81 is more familiar than this dark city streets.” I do not appreciate this mental ping-ponging. “Shut up!” I silently told myself. “You can’t be deciding at the last second to take turns. You’ll cause an accident! If I was supposed to take that turn I can always turn around and come back and take it later. For right now continue until you see an 81 south sign.”
I continued on, and a short while later I saw another sign for 81. Much to my consternation, this wasn’t a very helpful sign either. I think I have some kind of mental problem with signs. If there is any way a sign can be misunderstood, I will misunderstand. In this case it was a very big sign at an intersection pointing straight toward where you need to go to reach 81. But, as the sign was situated I couldn’t tell if it was saying that traffic on my street should continue straight, or traffic on the cross street should continue straight. The arrow on the sign was pointing up, and the most literal translation was that 81 was accessible only by ascending into the heavens. My most natural understanding was that it was pointing ahead in the direction I was going. But the sign was positioned on the left hand side of the intersection which inclined me to think it was for the cross traffic, which meant I should turn left. The text on the sign seemed to back this conclusion up. But the arrow . . . that arrow had me stumped. I was sitting there trying to figure out all these deep philosophical and logical issues when the light changed and I had to go.
I think really badly under pressure. I can act under pressure, but not think. So, in haste, I decided it was unwise to take all sorts of questionable turns. The best way to get lost is to take turn after turn in wild hope of getting unlost. Better go straight, I figured, until I had a sure sign. I went through the intersection, and promptly decided that was the stupidest bit of reasoning I had ever heard. Did I think there would be a sign for 81 at every intersection? By this time I had passed under 81 and every inch I drove was another inch away. I was pretty convinced turning left was what I should have done, and it was only perverse contrariness that made me go straight. But there was no choice but to continue on now, at least until I could find some good location to turn around.
After a good many more blocks there was no doubt that I had blown both chances to get back on 81. I should have taken the first right turn or the next left. Now I had to turn around and get back there. But there were no nice parking lots to turn around in, so I had to wait until I reached an intersection, turn left, and then circle the block until I could get back to the main street, heading in the opposite direction. Things were not so simple. Either I was really confused by that point, or it wasn’t a square block because at the intersection which I thought would bring me back into the street I wanted, was clearly not doing that. More frustration. Now I did feel like I was turned around. Leave it to a city to get me all confused. There were too many things to keep track of. I couldn’t watch for signs for 81, watch the traffic lights, count the number of streets I had passed, and remember their names, all at the same time. So, while I could count the number of turns I had taken, I didn’t really know what direction I was going, or what street (by name) I was supposed to get back on.
All of this was not handled so badly as it could have been. On my father’s side of the family there is a strong tendency to not handle “getting lost” very well. Tempers can flare after the first wrong turn, not to mention the third. But I was traveling alone, and perhaps the fact that I didn’t have an audience full of people to witness my idiocy, and the fact that I didn’t have back seat drivers chiming in with my own internal back seat driver allowed me a bit of calm. I was feeling exasperated and stupid, but I didn’t feel like I had run out of tricks yet.
Unlike the proverbial male, I’m not adverse to asking directions. However, I wasn’t going to pull to the side of the street and ask one of hoodlums wandering around on the darkened streets for directions. First decent commercial establishment I found I would stop and ask for directions. Until then, I would carry on trying to make my way back to the 81 signs.
Next left brought me to another street, but it looked no more familiar. A city at night can seem more impenetrable than a forest. At least in the forest you can stop and think. Then up ahead I saw a gas station. Perfect. I hadn’t seen it while heading in the other direction, so it confirmed my belief that I had somehow gotten at least slightly off track. But a gas station was a place to get directions. And, if nobody had any idea where 81 was (yes, I was starting to consider worse case scenarios) then I could see if there was a map in the car that I could try to figure out, or a map at the gas station I could purchase.
I pulled in to the gas station and went inside. Behind the counter were two Indian men in pressed shirts. They exuded such foreignness, sitting politely behind the counter, that my first thought was “I hope they can speak English.” I was much relieved when the man I spoke to did not give me a puzzled look but instead promptly pointed to his left and said with a slight accent, “Go that direction.”
He pointed to a four way intersection, and he seemed to be pointing toward a particular road, but I was not very happy with my success that night. So I repeated, “That direction,” and pointed toward the road I thought he meant.
“Yes. Go some three miles and then there is 81.”
Well. That was simple enough. Simple as it ought to be. But I couldn’t help asking one last time as I turned to leave, “You mean that direction, right?”
“Yes.”
The man probably thought I was thick in the head or something.
I got back in the car and headed “that” direction. The road was certainly leading out of Syracuse, but I was waiting before deciding that I was out of the woods. Who knew what other strange things I could do to myself? Clearly this wasn’t the exit I had got off.
After a few miles I was comforted by first signs telling me that I was on route 11, and then signs for 81 coming up. A sign for Cortland told me I was heading in the right direction, because Cortland is between Syracuse and home. Things were back under control. I had a throbbing headache, and had reached the grade A level of incompetence, but I was out of the city. Even if I somehow couldn’t find 81, I could take route 11 all the way home.
Which is what I almost did. I came upon this turn off road which had a sign on the other side that said 81. So, once again, I was left wondering if the sign was telling me that the turn I was just contemplating would lead me to 81 or that the next road ahead would bring me to 81. I took the turn. Not much longer after that I realized I was not supposed to take the turn, but rather continue on until the next turn. That was what the sign was telling me. Great. Reminding myself that at least I could now see 81 just above me, and I was only a few minutes away from getting on, I turned around and retraced my steps. This time I took the right turn, and got back onto 81. I rejoined 81 some distance beyond where I had exited, because Syracuse was now behind me. But I didn’t care. I was on 81, and it was a straight ride to home.
This story wouldn’t be complete without me mentioning that I almost took the wrong exit for home. I was in such a tired state that I was preparing to take an exit early. Well, you see, the town was near home, and I couldn’t exactly remember which exit number I was supposed to take. I was driving along, mulling over this quandary when the exit came up and I realized the twinkling lights below were most definitely not the ones I was expecting to see. It was then I remembered “Oh yeah, this is an exit early! How could I forget?”
That was the end of my excitements. I made it home, I’m happy to say, without further trouble. I had a splitting headache, but suffered nothing worse than injured pride. One could hope that next time I will remember that when the road splits in Syracuse 81 goes to the right. But I’ve no confidence that I will. Certainly, I’ll remember that the road splits. But, as this story has illustrated, I can reason myself into every wrong turn.
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