Route 66, two skeins of yarn and the open road

Travel transforms us, and it always has to do with what you bring back.

Sometimes it’s an object. (Yarn. It’s yarn. Who are we kidding? Souvenir yarn is the best. Unless it’s a souvenir book. And I always say “yes” if the store offers me a branded cloth tote. Earrings are good too. They’re small and you can find them at street fairs. A friend once suggested I buy some playing cards at a flea market in Brussels. They were very cheap and now I have a cool vintage deck from some European casino. I digress.) 

Regardless, I hold these little items in my hands, things that took up next-to-no space in my carry-on bag, and I remember where I was when I bought them.

Many times, I bring home a new kitchen idea. I learned about biscochitos, a crispy spice cookie, in New Mexico earlier this year. And after visiting family in Arizona a couple years ago, I now know that scalloped potatoes must have spicy ground chiles.

If I eat at a great pizzeria, which was common when my kid was younger, you can bet I write down new topping combos. (The Medici on 57th St. in Chicago, has a favorite one - pesto, goat cheese, spinach, mozzarella. Not all adventures are hundreds of miles.)

Then, throughout the year, all I need to do is bring out a recipe I learned on a trip, and it reminds me of a place, like Marcel Proust and his memory-jogging madeleines. 

But the very best thing I bring back from a trip, every single one I take, is the gift of possibility. Usually, they’re small possibilities. I could take a break with a cup of tea every afternoon. I could dance more. I could have grocery store picnics in the park. I could make the most beautiful shawl with these skeins of yarn I found in New York.

Sometimes they’re big possibilities. I saw this when we took our teen to Montreal this spring to visit colleges. I watched them look at the city like someone imagining what it would be like to live there for the next four years. They looked at the subway like someone who could use it to get to an apartment, or to a job, or to the contra dance. They looked at cafes like one could become their regular spot to buy a coffee or study at a corner table. 

I know what it feels like to see possibilities through my own eyes, but it was magical to look at them through someone else’s. 

That’s why I think the idea of Route 66 persists in our collective imagination. It’s not the actual physical road, but the possibilities it represented for tourists, Hollywood dreamers, Dust Bowl-era migrants.

It’s a great metaphor to ponder on for people who create things. Stepping out the front door on a trip opens you to possibilities and casting on a bunch of stitches opens you to possibilities, or saying ‘yes’ to an invitation opens you to possibilities.

You just have to take the trip.