The other day I had a job interview in a nearby town. I was reluctant to go because it felt like the first step toward compromising my life plan, which is to avoid a conventional career path by having as many odd adventures as I can. But after two months of driving around the country alone, and one month waiting tables at home, it seemed like the thing to do. Five minutes before leaving my house for the interview, I printed out the directions to get there. The directions told me that once I got off the highway, I would follow a road that would split three times, and at the final fork there would be a driveway in middle of the split, and that I should take that driveway. When I arrived at what I thought was the final fork, I saw what appeared to be a gravel driveway in front of me. That meant that I was almost there. I took a deep breath and thought of that Robert Frost poem. And I took the road less traveled. I didn’t want to go to this interview. But here I was. And so I did as the directions told me: I didn’t turn left, I didn’t bear right, I continued on straight.
The road I was on now felt less like a gravel driveway than a trail, but I figured anything not paved is just considered gravel. The deeper I went down this road the narrower it became. Someone really ought to trim the bushes which are brushing the sides of my car, I thought angrily. It was then that I realized that when I had come to the point where two roads had diverged in the wood, I hadn’t merely taken the one less traveled, I had taken the road not traveled, the road that wasn’t a road. I was driving down a path. A path in middle of the woods. Things began to crack and pop beneath my tires.
I’ve been in two harrowing driving situations. Once in Canada when my car almost fell off a cliff, and once in Texas when I got so flustered by a violent thunderstorm that I ended up in Mexico. Both times I thought I was going to die. This evening I knew I wasn’t going to die. But I knew I was in trouble. At this point the path was way too narrow to turn around. My options were these: 1) Back up 2) Keep going. I am someone who has a hard time backing up out of straight driveways. Because of how deep I’d gone and how twisted the path was, backing up would’ve been impossible. I had to keep going. Among my problems, there was this: The earth beneath my tires was getting softer and the path began to take a not-so-gentle incline. At any moment my tires could start spinning and in order to keep moving forward I had to gun it. I had a brief flash of vertigo as I imagined my car rolling backwards.
Finally, the woods ended and someone’s backyard began. The backyard had statues in it; odd, menacing looking figures that seemed strategically placed to intimidate intruders. The kind that come barreling out of the woods in oversized station wagons around supper time. The house that stood on the lawn was tall and imperious. In one of its windows two children stood watching, calling to their mother they saw a car driving through their backyard. At any moment an old man would come running out of the house waving a cane. “Stop that car! Shame on you! My property!” Of these two things I was sure. Weaving through the statues I made my way to the driveway and then to the road.
Once I was out on the road and a safe distance from the house, I was overcome with giddiness. I had the feeling you get when you get back a test you think you failed, and discover you got a C-. I was ten minutes late for my interview and still a little bit lost, but I hadn’t totaled my car, knocked over a statue, or gotten stuck in the mud. The sun had just set and light had that ethereal blue quality it gets during winter dusks, where everything white seems to absorb the fading light and glow. It was cold and the road had crusted to a shimmer. The wind was picking up leaves and blowing them around.
As I retraced my steps trying to look for the right fork in the road, I started to think about how appropriate it was that I ended up off-roading on my way to a job interview. In order for life to feel interesting to me, I always think I have to go on unchartered territory. Maybe my mistake wasn’t an innocent accident, but some higher force trying to teach me a lesson. Or maybe I’m just dumb when it comes to following directions.
I wish this column could be titled the 100 stages of graduating, because really 5 is not enough. I thought I could get it together for you guys, for myself really, ending with some shattering piece of wisdom, but alas I come up empty-handed. It’s been six months since I pulled out of Middletown with my car all loaded up, but imagine it will be that many years before my life has taken some kind of course. But perhaps that’s a ridiculous way to look at things. Our lives are always moving, every day we get up in the morning, something happens. I began this column three years and eighty something Arguses ago, and my first piece ended with a Saved by the Bell quote. So I think it’s appropriate I end with one. “I’m so excited. I’m so excited. I’m so scared.” The End.
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