Bill and I had been married five years, six, seven, and if people wondered whether we would have children, they didn’t ask. As time went on, it was clear we were a couple who traveled. In the space where they might have asked about our kids, now they asked about our travels.
In the stress and joy of traveling, Bill and I became a team. We had our routines. Bill saying, “How would you like to go to (Glacier, Banff, Yellowstone, the Desert Southwest, Mexico, the Olympics, Egypt, Greece, Switzerland)?” Me saying, “Yes.”
He did the planning (reading books and making notes and buying tickets, mapping routes and best tours, hikes, campgrounds, hotels, restaurants). I did the packing (imagining being there with sun, snow, rain, hike, picnic lunch, busy market, bug, snake, burn, pickpocket), and thinking of every little thing either of us would need so if Bill asked, “Where is the (battery, tweezers, aspirin, ointment, notebook, peanut butter, Pepto Bismol)?” I’d be able to say, “It’s right here.”
We had an airplane routine (book, pencil, crossword, water, tickets in this bag, check that bag), and a car routine (you drive three hours, I drive three hours, map in the place next to the passenger, save your nap for driving through southern Idaho), a camping routine in our little pop-up tent-trailer (I take out the poles, he unhitches from the car, he does the campfire food, I do the cooktop food), and a hiking routine (start early, have lunch, one PB&J, one cheddar cheese warmed from the sun, come back to camp, shower, make love, nap).
Bill knew by now that I would try anything (on a hike up Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park, the last half mile along the narrow rock fin, chains to hold on the side of the sheer 1500-foot drop, and I was scared and I wouldn’t stop, because giving up would be worse than going on). I knew he would come for me when I was scared and hadn’t told him that I didn’t know how to do a thing (me thinking, what could be hard about snorkeling in the ocean in Mexico? Him giving me mask and fins and taking off ahead of me. The current pulled me in another direction, toward the rocks, and I didn’t know how to breathe with this thing in my mouth and this mask not sealed on my face and I choked and panicked and he turned back for me, held me in the water, took me to shore, whispered, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay”).
When we became separated (in the flower market, spice market, supermercado, church, museum, airport, busy street, hiking trail), I looked for Bill’s curly head, tall over people and trees and sandstone rocks. Curly pepper with salt and, as time went by, curly salt with pepper. The steady level way he held his head.
We knew there would be a fight (I am too hungry, he is too tired, I think it’s the road-trail-street to the right, he thinks it’s the road-trail-street to the left). And we trusted we would find our way through it. We would speak with hurt and then not speak for some hours, and then reach out (my hand or his) and reach back (his hand or mine), and we would talk and learn something new that changed how we entered the fight and how we found our way out.
Every trip was a trial and test and love, and we were at our best the more hours we had together. Every trip Bill planned was a gift held out to me, the adventure he could give me. Every trip I said yes to was my gift held out to him (I will go with you to places that scare me and amaze me and teach me and draw me even closer to you). We knew we would do this for the rest of our lives.
When we went to Bill’s mother’s house after a trip, to give her a necklace or charm we had found for her, she would come running out the door, arms wide, calling out, “My Billie’s home, my Billie’s home,” and wrap those arms around him and then around me. And in this moment, I would see his happiness with her, and how his love for her had shaped his capacity to love me.
We saved the addresses of the people we’d met on our travels. A family from Switzerland had two children who wanted to learn to speak English so we could all talk together.
In Greece, we met a couple from England who were there to get married. They asked us to stand in as witnesses because they hadn’t come with anyone from home and we seemed like the kind of people who would remember their day. In the southwest desert, we met a couple from Georgia who traveled to the desert every year because they loved it as much as we did. We stayed in contact with these people from other places, and the tendrils of friendship and love spanned thousands of miles.
On visits to Condon after our travels, we came with pictures and stories, a new shirt for Dad, a necklace for Mom, and gifts for the kids until there were so many kids we would need a whole other suitcase, and so we stopped. When we ran into the people of Condon, they asked where we’d traveled to last, where we planned to go next.