Odilon Redon: Passage of a Soul (1891)

"The roads least taken tend to be the ones most worth taking."

The Exiled do not readily adopt their new home. They naturally resist assimilation because too easy an integration might serve to disrespect their "real" home. They will find many reasons why their new station seems inferior, however superior it might objectively seem to every other observer. Traffic became chief among my complaints when we landed in Northern Virginia. Traffic had evolved into absolutely unworkable patterns there, where the bulk clogged what were euphemistically referred to as arteries. These often proved to be among the longest paths between any two points, but paradoxically also the most traveled. I believed that this had more to do with habit than design. People often follow what appear to be the wider paths, for instance, when narrower ones might make more sense. Of course, if everyone followed these shorter paths, they'd become clogged, too, so I worked hard to keep my emerging SecretPassages secret.

Chief among my strategies for keeping my SecretPassages secret involved turning off any navigation apps that might be recording my passage. Apps like Waze® snoop on drivers to divine where to direct traffic. If they see someone taking a less traveled road, they will shortly see to it that it's clogged, too, thereby justifying people using them to get around traffic. These popular navigation aids create the clogs they exist to direct drivers around. A great benefit of choosing not to use maps to find my way when we first entered The District was that I repeatedly got lost and then also found. My reorientation would sometimes find me inadvertently taking what I would later recognize as a SecretPassage. As I learned my way around, I was consequently able to discover my own arterials, ones which had either yet to be discovered or were rejected by those more interested in well-beaten paths. In this way, The District became mine rather than theirs. I conquered the place instead of being assimilated.

My goal was rarely to get anywhere quickly. For instance, I refused to set a tire on The (infamous) Beltway, but only because driving on it terrified me. I much preferred taking whatever long way around I could find if only it would allow me to avoid that roadway better not taken. I didn't usually roam very far. I immediately reviled the commuting culture I found in Northern Virginia, where many drove scores of miles each way to get to work and back home each day. This practice seems unconscionable, even if one can afford to engage in it. I believed that one should live close to wherever they worked or rely upon public transportation to get them there because the air wasn't intended to fill with the fumes from expended fuel. I thought car commuters were fools and refused to become one of them.

I looked down my nose at many neighborhoods as we were assimilating into the region. I quickly rejected much of NW DC due to its lack of public transportation. In a supreme demonstration of the stupidity of the wealthy, Georgetown and consequently everywhere else upstream from there rejected the Metro system when it was proposed, thereby rendering their portion of the city much less livable. Rents were generally far too expensive there, anyway, so they were easy to reject as a possibility. I summarily dismissed places without convenient Metro stops, even though some had reasonable alternative public transportation. I rejected anything that might require The Muse to become a car commuter.

Over the ensuing months, I slowly redrew my personal map of The District. My map knew how to get through most of the clogs other drivers seemed to reliably fall into. My map often required me to drive on routes with a lower speed limit. So much the better. I managed my Exiled life so I wouldn't need to live it in a hurry. I accepted that if I really wanted to get to the Library of Congress, I could choose to take the frantic route or the SecretPassage, which would get me there in shape to do some studying rather than jangled. Years later, I realized that I consider any city where I have yet to discover a workable set of SecretPassages to be hostile territory and those where I have found SecretPassages, much more hospitable. Civilization can seem feral compared to places that have preserved the routes people used to use before they created bypasses and freeways, neither of which live up to their names. The roads least taken tend to be the ones most worth taking.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz