The trip from Savannah, Georgia, to Athens, Georgia, takes four hours. There are two ways of making that pilgrimage, and like all religions, its divisions promote strong feelings. One way is to take Interstate 16 to US 441/29. This route, Chris’ preference, is technically the longer route, but thanks to four-lane highways and passing lanes and bypasses around small towns, it takes the same amount of time as the shorter route. It is a more efficient means of travel, and a driver can maintain more or less the same speed. If the truth be told, it is the less frustrating choice.

My choice is the other route: Interstate 16 to Highways 57/15, which takes the driver off the interstate far more quickly and through a series of even smaller Georgia towns. It is a route that always makes a driver feel slightly lost, with the sighting of a 57 or 15 sign feeling like a serendipitous occasion. It happily reminds me of the Georgia of my youth, with its two-lane roads overlooking cows and farms and stands of trees, with its hazards of being stuck behind a loaded logging truck or an oversized tractor. In Swainsboro there is (or at least there used to be) a trailer with “AA” in front of it — an “AA” that is about 12 feet tall — which always makes me laugh for two different reasons: Exactly how anonymous can Alcoholics Anonymous be with that kind of signage? and Even without the sign, can one truly be an anonymous alcoholic in Swainsboro, Georgia? There are the twin cities of Tennille and Sandersville, separated by a train track, and there is a barn along the route whose owner keeps painted to inspire football greatness. (This year’s message: CHUBB FOR HEISMAN.) And then there is the trek through Wrightsville, the home of Herschel Junior Walker — a fact that hardly needs the green highway sign that announces it.

Chris and I drove his preferred route this Friday to Athens for a football game on Saturday. As he threw our shared duffel bag into the trunk of the car, it struck me that when it comes to road trips, I am a dog. Chris has but to open the car door a crack, tilt his head and say, “C’mon, girl!,” and stand back as I happily bound out the front door. I settle into the car with my things (magazines, knitting, podcasts), and as long as I am kept fed and watered, and allowed to stretch my legs every so often, I am perfectly content. And while I would have preferred my way, I suppose it does not matter:  Either way gets us from Savannah to Athens in the same amount of time, which is either four hours or 23 years, depending on your perspective.

It is funny how the drive back to your college town throws your personal odometer into reverse and makes you feel like you’re hurtling backwards in time. One moment you’re a 47 year-old mother of two teenagers, the next you’re a new parent in your 30s, suddenly you’re a newlywed, and as the car parks for the final time, you’re convinced you’re a co-ed. That last, euphoric feeling lasted exactly nine seconds, for that is the time it took my arthritic feet to hit the ground and my myopic eyes to spot an actual co-ed, and it suddenly became clear yet again: I wasn’t getting any younger.

That fact has gnawed at me on prior trips to Athens. It is a town brimming with youth. But my age did not bother me at all this time. I chalk it up to a certain attitude of youthful abandon — or at least middle-aged abandon (since actual youthful abandon would probably do me in now). It amuses me what passes for “abandon” these days. On this trip, I ate half a loaf of bread — with butter — at dinner, followed by all of my dinner (which included french fries), followed by most of Chris’ dessert. I called home after 11 p.m. I brushed but I did not floss. I did not read. I watched TV in bed. I slept until 9:37 the next morning. I drank a single Coors Light with breakfast. And I wore a Todd Gurley replica jersey to the game.

The jersey was a recent addition to my wardrobe, and it was time: A fan needs to represent. I had worked hard in the past to put together tasteful, maybe even whimsical, combinations of red and black, but as the game approached, my heart desired a jersey. Did I need a jersey? Two answers were equally true: Absolutely! and Not at all! As a nod to both answers, I decided to buy the least expensive jersey I could find. For $29, I ordered a Todd Gurley jersey — albeit a boy’s XL jersey —  and for a tense few days, I had  images of myself stuck with an ill-fitting crop top. But it wasn’t, and as I wandered the game, I saw a million other Todd Gurleys, all boys under the age of 12, whose mothers apparently bought them the cheapest jerseys possible with the understanding that they would outgrow it soon. I bought mine with the desperate hope that I wouldn’t.

So Chris (in his tasteful combination of red and black) and I (in my boy’s jersey) watched the game in the rain. I barked like a dog and clapped and yelled and danced with the band and shook pom-poms and at one low, low point, even booed the ref. I drank two diet Cokes and ate one absolutely delicious Chick-Fil-A sandwich and eavesdropped on conversations and talked clothes with a fan from the other team in the ladies’ restroom. I heard the fight song and saw the players and shouted along with the cheerleaders. In that familiar town, in that familiar stadium, with my college boyfriend and husband, I felt 18 and 47 at the same time.

Chris and I left early, and as we walked through campus, he told me a story about himself that I had never heard before. He had taken a career placement test at college, and it suggested that he become either a diplomat or a lawyer. I replied that his becoming a diplomat was about as plausible as my becoming a mime: We’d both look the part, but we’d both be in trouble when we opened our mouths. I laughed. He laughed. We clasped hands and bumped hips, and I left the ghosts of the past where we stood. Walking up the hill toward the car, I smiled when I passed families and children. I even passed up the free cinnamon rolls offered by the Mormon kids and turned down another Coors Light.

It was time to get home.

ALC

I grew up in Moultrie, Georgia, a small town in southwest Georgia. When I was eight years old, a peanut farmer from nearby Plains, Georgia, ran for president. Every day until the election, I wore a green and white button with “Carter ’76” on it. Later, the button was joined by one of my prized possessions: a peanut painted bright green, with a caricature of Jimmy Carter’s face on it, hanging from a green silk cord. I was ecstatic when he won the presidency, and between the button and the necklace, I felt that I somehow had done my part.

When you consider Friday morning chapel at R.B. Wright Elementary School, it is no wonder that I was such a rabid Carter supporter. He was a Georgian. I was a Georgian. Georgia was where my loyalties lie: Those assemblies practically served as a pep rally for the state. We pledged the flag, and learned about good citizenship, and had a moment in Georgia history, and sang practically every single song ever written about the state of Georgia as Mrs. Hollingsworth banged away on a piano.

My favorite Georgia song — and the song I sang the loudest (which is saying something) — was “Georgia Is the State for Me.” It had about 52 verses, all of which I remember as a 47 year-old and require little prompting to sing even now. It included this phrase, sung at a crescendo: “Farms with fertile land/cities small and grand/golden statehouse dome!” And the song itself may very well represent the limit of the internet. I googled some of the (many) lyrics, yet I could not find a reference to it anywhere. Was it a creation of Mrs. Hollingsworth? Was it a dream? Was it sung with a dose of Kool-Aid and brainwashing accompanying it?

Who knows.

Like Georgia, Jimmy Carter has been on my mind, and perhaps because of my good Moultrie upbringing, I wrote him a letter today. The President has been diagnosed with cancer, and from the news accounts that I have read, he is handling this bout of adversity with his characteristic strong faith and good humor. A short note of encouragement seemed the least that I could do. While I don’t remember exactly what I wrote, I told him something along these lines: As an eight year old in Moultrie, I wore the button and peanut necklace every day until the election; his election inspired me; his life after the presidency inspired me even more; and I was praying for him, Miss Rosalynn, and their family. I used “Mr. President” as the salutation. I hesitated — only a bit — in referring to Mrs. Carter as “Miss Rosalynn,” but having established my upbringing, I figured that she would understand. I used my best handwriting, and I proofread the letter twice. I addressed it to President Jimmy Carter, Plains, Georgia 31780.

As I sealed the envelope, I started crying.

Although I cry a lot, this surprised me. So I thought about it.

A few years ago, my life seemed to bottom out. I started to search for my own brand of happiness and meaning, so I looked to volunteering and charitable endeavors. I became involved in neighborhood issues, and I became a board member of organizations, one state-wide and one local, aimed to help the poor. My efforts have led to a single conclusion: It is hard to be good.

It is hard to ask others for money. It is hard to donate money. It is hard to find the time to listen to others complain. It is hard not to do your own share of complaining. It is hard to feel like you’re making a difference. It is hard to devote your time selflessly. It is hard to involve yourself with a large organization because you feel like a small cog in a big wheel. It is hard to involve yourself with a small organization because you feel the constant struggle to keep it afloat.

It is hard, and I am often really terrible at it. I grumble. Unlike the President’s unshakeable faith, I am possessed of only a shakeable variety, leaving me to resort to this advice that I once heard in a sermon: Even if it’s not a lot, show the faith you have. I constantly question my motives, especially when I work for the organizations that help the poor. I signed up for these duties to live outside myself, yet a lot of times it all comes back to me: I am overwhelmingly grateful for what I have, what I have been given, what I can do. In my work with neighborhood issues, I marvel that anyone actually runs for public office, with its flotsam and jetsam of constituent complaints, its fickle electorate, its armchair quarterbacking,

And it was today, after a lengthy incoming call about one of these endeavors, received when I had a million other things to do — a million other things that pay the bills, a million other things that I had to cast aside so that I could take time to listen — that I became overwhelmed with the need to write President Carter and send my best wishes. I have never met the man. I have marveled at his legacy. A peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, who was the President of the United States and then went on to far bigger and better things. By all accounts, he is kind and committed, disciplined and determined, humble and helpful. By all accounts, he grabs a shovel, a hammer. By all accounts, he does not grumble. What he does is hard. He makes it look easy.

ALC

This morning I had one of those moments that could have gone either way: I almost got attacked by a Rottweiler. As the moment unspooled over a few seconds (which managed to feel like a few hours), my lizard brain kicked in, I went into an unfamiliar auto-pilot, and I made it out shaken but (mercifully) intact, well aware that things can turn on a dime.

There is — of all things — a chateau in a vineyard in north Georgia, just off Interstate 85. One moment, you’re driving 70 miles an hour, and the next moment, you’re pulling into the grounds of a manicured vineyard, the name of the chateau carved in boxwood in bubble letters out front. It has its own crest, and it flies its own flag. An unusual proportion of the staff is Dutch, and part of the main building is modeled after a French train station. It is clean. It is pleasant. It is spacious.

It is a little strange. I very much like to feel of a place, with a certain awareness of exactly where I am on the space-time continuum, and this place left me feeling discombobulated. Why, I could have been in a large chateau practically anywhere!  (Which, as I write it, strikes me as a pretty hilarious thought.) It did not help that I was in a conference for two days, sitting still in a dimly lit ballroom, or that it rained almost the entire time. It also did not help that to have a dry place to walk around, Chris and I went to the Mall of Georgia a few miles away. I immediately got a bad case of (what I call) mallaise, that sinking depression that comes over me when I realize that I am trapped in a mall.

One of the great marvels of my marriage is our Great Mall Divide. You would think that I, with my love of clothes, would be the mall rat of the two of us, but that is not the case. It is Chris, my dear introverted Chris, who loves a mall. How can this be? I asked him late yesterday afternoon in the food court, his favorite spot in the mall. How can you love a mall? It is a question I ask him almost every time we go to a mall, and I know the answer: He likes the anonymity of being surrounded by people who are just there, who want to interact only in the name of commerce, who walk by without saying hi or making eye contact or having any desire to know his entire life story. These things are the province of the painfully extroverted (like me!), and yesterday, after walking among a legion of mall zombies, I practically wept when a J. Crew sales clerk engaged me in a discussion about what I was wearing. For a small, shining moment in a large, anonymous mall, order had been restored to my world. Chris, meanwhile, pretended to be utterly absorbed in a selection of belts, which may or may not been women’s belts.

This morning, I resolved to get out there. Make that chateau my own. See the sights. Soak in the grandeur. At sunrise! So I left my room in the Chopin wing, strolled past the L’Auberge Lounge, saluted the chateau’s flag, and followed a sign marked “Serenity Nature Trail.” I began walking through a wooded area, stopped to tie my shoe near a snake den, started walking a little faster, strolled by a bubbling stream, and as I began to relax, thought, “Ah. Now this is all right!”

A half-mile after I began my walk, the “Serenity Nature Trail” joined a paved golf cart path. While standing on concrete, with a golf course to my left, I took a picture of a sign that said “Nature Trail” with a manicured lawn and a McMansion in the immediate background.

It was an Audubon moment.

And like every great nature explorer before me, I walked on the golf course path, following yellow bands on pine trees, to where the “Serenity Nature Trail” took me practically into the back yards of other McMansions. All of which had (helpfully) posted large, yet tasteful, signs warning me not to trespass. And to stay off private property.

As I approached a hill just off the golf course, with a red clay trail scarring the manicured greens, I noticed an older man in a hat walking a large black dog. I love dogs, and dogs love me, and even on a small path with a desire not to trespass beat into me by tasteful signs, I simply would have continued to walk, greeted the human, and said “hey pup!” to the dog. Except for some reason this morning, I did not. I stayed at the bottom of the hill, several feet off the path.

The dog was a large Rottweiler on a blue leash with an impressive spike choke chain around his neck. His human had almost no control over him, and as the two came down the hill, the dog started barreling toward me, his human sledding behind him helplessly. It occurred to me both that I was about to get attacked and that I would not fare well in the encounter. And without thinking, with just doing, I avoided eye contact with the dog and turned to the side so that the dog would attack my left thigh and rump, not my face and chest. I somehow formed plans that when the dog hit me, I would curl into a fetal position, cover my face with my arms, and hope for the best. I am not sure I have ever been more scared. I am not sure I have ever been more calm.

Six inches from my left thigh, the man got control of the dog. As he and the Rottweiler walked off, the man said to me, Well, I guess I’m not taking him to the nursing home today. This apparently was meant as a joke, but a single word formed in my mind:

Asshole.

That word did not escape my lips because I did not want to chance round two, but in a perfect world, I would have let him have it. In this imperfect world, I kept moving. And started to shake violently.

The “Serenity Nature Trail” led me straight to the vineyard, and surrounded by grape vines and overwhelmed by the smell of muscadines, I watched the sun rise. It was beautiful and moving and as much as I have ever been, I was grateful to be walking on this earth. Nothing happened this morning. Something terrible could have. It did not. And when I told the front desk manager of the chateau, he could not have been any nicer. Here, please take this bottle of wine, he said. It will calm your nerves.

And then I went to the conference, the reason for my visit to the chateau. At exactly 8:46 a.m., the moderator interrupted the discussion and called for a moment of silence. For what happened 14 years ago today. It was over in a few seconds, but it managed to feel like a few hours. I had a hard time not bursting into tears, not wailing, not drawing the stranger next to me into a hug. It put my morning in perspective and flooded me with all sorts of feelings: love, sorrow, sadness. And even hope. For a world where people minding their own business do not get attacked. Where people are kind. Where the unthinkable does not happen. For peace. For serenity. Now.

ALC

Even though I think of myself as a voracious reader, I am not exactly certain that this description is true these days. Sure, I would like to be voracious, but between business ownership and family, spin class and exercise, chores and duties, reading often takes it on the chin. But I read daily, and I try to read a variety of books. A few days ago, after three weeks of reading, I finished a lengthy, exhaustively researched, occasionally interesting, and often mind-numbing biography of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. (The author’s great regret? After working on this book for 20 years and discussing it with her husband at length nightly, her husband died prematurely, and before the book’s publication. After reading that regret, and reading the book itself, I have my own ideas.) And this morning, to cleanse the palate, I finished a collection of profane, often hilarious personal essays by a comedian.

While I try to read a variety of books, I rarely read self-help or self-improvement books. Yes, I need help, and yes, I need improvement, but I find that these types of books chap my hide. (If I had to pinpoint the source of my irritation, it’s the length: If you’ve got a great idea, tell me in 2,000 words or less — not over 400 pages. Or, to cadge from my friend Jessica, there are a number of books that would function better as magazine articles.) So I typically steer clear.

Except when I don’t, which leads me to divulge this dirty little secret: I have two such books on my nightstand right now. I ordered both in moments of weakness. I have not read the first one, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Ironically, it sits in a tall pile of books next to my bed, and every time I see it, and especially its placement, I feel very guilty. When I needed a break from F. Scott’s alcoholism and Zelda’s schizophrenia, I skimmed in a single evening the second one, Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body’s Natural Ability to Heal Itself. To clean, I apparently need a two-week long detox of kale shakes, organic vegetables, minimal fruit, little to no meat, no eggs, absolutely no caffeine, hours of cooking, and (optional but recommended) colonics. The author warns that at first I may feel grumpy (you think?) but soon the kingdom of good health will throw wide its gates. I woke up inspired the next morning, only to find myself eating three Krystals and a diet Coke for lunch — none of which would have normally appealed to me absent the dual specters of kale and colonics, all of which suddenly became a moral battle: You can have this Krystal only if you pry it from my puffy, unclean, bacon-handling hands.

I reached the height of my how-to stage when I was a swimmer. As a 33 year-old recovering from a stress fracture in my foot, I taught myself how to swim from a book that my children received in a Chick-Fil-A kid’s meal, joined an adult swim team, and generally went way overboard. Just how overboard is another story entirely, but to give you a taste, let’s just say that a few years into swimming, one of us trained for a 12 mile lake swim (illness ended it at the five-mile mark) and thought seriously of swimming the English Channel. Swimming tried to kill me (have you ever heard of a swimmer who developed severe asthma from chlorine? now you have), and my swim career ended abruptly in 2008 due to an impressive shoulder injury in a car wreck. But in the seven years of my swim career, I became a formidable source of swim mechanics and swim history, sports stats and sports platitudes. My favorite in the last category had to do with the five steps toward mastery of a skill:

1. Unconscious incompetence.
2. Conscious incompetence.
3. Conscious competence.
4. Unconscious competence.
5. Mastery.

I fear that I became a bit tiresome with all of this knowledge (for instance: Did you know that no one in my household really cares about Mark Spitz’ training diet in 1971?), and I decided to slow my how-to roll.

Until now, when I have placed the decluttering book in a giant stack and washed down the clean eating book with a gut bomb and artificially sweetened soda. But that is not to say that progress has not been made. At breakfast yesterday morning, I found myself eating an organic rice cake, almond butter, and fresh blackberries. At bedtime last night, I found myself hauling out unworn clothes and uncomfortable shoes from the little closet of horrors. And throughout the day, in small and often imperceptible choices, I have found myself inching toward a balanced life. I apply sunscreen. I return library books on time. I typically eat meat only once a day. I have grown to love avocados. I sleep seven hours a night. I curse less. I exercise in moderation. I walk 12,000 steps. And all of these good habits beget other good habits.

So last night, while I was lying in bed with a book at the ready, I turned to Chris and told him this:  I feel like I am less of a mess than ever before. It was less a boast, more a statement of fact. And while I have no doubt that it was true, I had no idea exactly where to go from here, or what it meant to have achieved some sort of balance. My big fears were that balance would lead to a life that was static and uninteresting, a stint of tiresome virtue, a lack of opportunity to grow.

I woke up this morning with the whole issue of balance on my mind. After a ridiculously healthy breakfast marred by my iced tea consumption, it was time to exercise. (That whole sentence smacks of the tiresome virtue I fear.) I have a Pilates reformer, and if you were to see it without knowing what it is, you might think that I have a very interesting personal life: It has straps and pulleys, a moving mat, springs, sheepskin protectors. It is vaguely Scandinavian-looking, and at 8 feet long, it is large.  It is not a contraption designed by lawyers, for if you are a lawyer (like I am), you realize that the entire machine is one foreseeable misuse after another. (If this description tells you nothing, here is what a Pilates reformer looks like.)

Pilates is an interesting endeavor: The more I do it, the harder it gets — or (at least) the harder I realize it is. The exercises I did this morning, fittingly enough, all involved balance. I would find myself grounded on one leg on a moving carriage, one hand in a strap, the other hand holding a weight, moving slowly and hoping I did not fall. I navigated one precarious position after another, sweating and occasionally cursing silently. I had to think about it, and at times, not think about it. I found it almost impossible to be totally still; everything would shake as I tried not to move. At some point, my son wandered downstairs and saw what I was doing: Be careful, mom. Don’t fall. You could get hurt. And at times, when my body and brain were struggling for some sort of equilibrium, I thought that this is what it’s all about.

So the physical this morning answered the mental question of last night: What does it mean to have balance? It is far from static. It is far from dull. It is discipline and repetition. It is challenge. It is thinking and not thinking. It is sweating and cursing and not falling. It is falling and getting back up. It is conscious competence, with fleeting glimpses of unconscious competence — and always, yes always, the hope of mastery.

ALC