olde Chelsea, olde finding one's way

[fflo]

Last night I wound up in Chelsea, trying to clear my head, and when it seemed time to head back to my own berg, I commenced meandering the car around the streets off the main downtown road, to the east, the way I used to do, to find the way back to the road that always seemed a bit a puzzle to get to, the country road back home. It runs a while alongside the railroad tracks, I recalled, so sleuthing a path to that landmark could help, could help me know when I'd found it. But that's right, it always was a little tricky to pick up the trail back, back when I used to head up that way, with people, with time for the slow road, with temperament for it, with money for gas and still a good bit of that spirit of itching to roam.

I'd probably made five or six ninety-ish-degree turns, in the neighborhoods of old square houses back there, when I remembered suddenly that something in my pocket could point me where I was going. Something I didn't have back then. With some reluctance, but thinking of the doggie awaiting, I got it out and turned it on, and all the old scent of the fun of not knowing which way to go was, poof, gone. Just north on Freer, but less free, and one more turn and that's that.

It was good to be by grain towers and places selling the likes of gravel, and all so dark and starry and people-asleep. And it was good to be lost and a little frustrated with it. It's good sometimes just to find the way.

One time when I was heading into some new town to see Lee Ann and Lorne, I had her on the phone about when I'd arrive, but I stopped her when she seemed to be about to give directions. I started to say I just wanted to try to find it, to drive until I got there, but I didn't get it all out, cuz she knew why already. And that I would have more fun that way, and why. You only get to guess, really fully, the first time, after all. Unless it's the way out of Chelsea, and you never memorize it, because you know you can figure it out soon enough, as long as there's no one in the car who hates to be "lost."