Well the floor is gently vibrating under me now, the pressurized cabin and floating through the dark night’s sky, and I turn back to look at the last week from above.
It was a week of countless experiences, sights too beautiful to take in all at once, and thoughts too complicated for a vacated mind. So I held off, waiting until tonight to process it all – that’s where I went wrong. Summing up a week’s worth of anything in a single night is an ill-fated task. But who knows, it could be fun.
My Dad & Garik
My dad has always talked about Garik in the highest regard, as his intellectual kindred spirit of sorts. For me it’s always been interesting to hear my parents discuss their friendships and lives in general in this way because it humanizes them, brings them down from the pedestal that I’ve held them atop, and makes them seem more real, warm, and close. As time once again shows, happiness is being understood, and the power of that understanding should not be underestimated, or overlooked.
Seeing the way that my dad and Garik interacted, not just the discussion topics (see below) but also their overarching attitudes toward each other and the world around them was fascinating. Maybe it is because I have yet to meet someone who knows as much if not more than my dad – I’m not sure – but there’s something about their friendship that’s unique, and all-together explains my dad’s prior descriptions of Garik.
And so as we ended our last night in Boston, and Garik and my dad sat in the nearby kitchen and talked long into the night, I couldn’t help but be glad that they both were happy.
Roadside Chats
The broad range of conversation topics in the car on our way through New England is difficult to enumerate. We talked about history, engineering, politics, philosophy, family – just to name a small few. These kinds of discussions are exactly the reason my father enjoys long road trips, for even those rare times spent in silence are spent thinking about the outside world
My role on these types of trips has traditionally been that of curious listener, asking a question from time to time but mostly absorbing the information before mr. That role has changed over time, as is only natural, to that of ever more frequent participant, sharing my perspective, thoughts, and outlook. While for most of these kinds of trips it is my dad and I, this trip threw Garik into the mix, and I must admit that listening to their reactions to each others words was almost as interesting as the discussions themselves. My mom and Oksana chimed in from time to time, and Dina and I did too, but mostly it was them sharing and us listening, and that’s just the way I liked it.
Symbols of Success
Similar to Dina and my visits to Las Vegas, we got to see how successful people choose to live their lives. More than with any passive cinematic experience, we received another glimpse into the fruits of another family’s labor, and this glimpse yet again renewed my drive to work harder and longer.
Touring Garik and Oksana’s houses, taking Dina out on the lake they own, and hearing about their various businesses both here and in Russia was inspiring to say the least.
Grade School Flashbacks
There was something about New England, its historical foundation, its timeless tradition, which takes me back to every lesson on American history that I had in elementary, middle, and high school. The American Revolution, the Civil War – they all seemed so far removed to me even when reading as many books about them as I did. But being there, in Boston, on John Brown’s Farm, in Quincy, unearthed a treasured and living past which served to only reaffirm my sadly rare 20-something patriotism.
Northeast Nature
I’m sure there are words to describe the beauty that Dina and I saw on the trip, but I evidently have exhausted my adjective pool – suffice it to say that each bend in the road led to as much pointing as wide-eyed awe.
The flame colored forests from right to left were only trumped by their own reflections in the cold water of each lake we passed, and it’s safe to say that we got exactly the views we flew here for.
So here it ends, our mid-October roadtrip that Dina and I looked forward to since the day we bought our tickets. And while the trip may be over, I take comfort in the fact that its memories are now preserved in not only our minds and photographs, but also this little travel journal.
