The Upstate

November 2, 2020

It occurred to me, as we stumbled into the second Marriott we tried at 10 PM Friday night in Greenville, S.C., that our lives had become truly bizarre. We sat through the closing on our house sale in a seedy office building in Falls Church, Va., in the morning—these settlement companies don’t go in for frills. We stopped at the house, no longer ours, and took pictures, still in a daze.

Then onward: we convoyed south, Sandy in the compact, me in the van, missing phone messages from the oncologist. We poked along separately, then stopped, separated, caught up. Then we passed Charlotte and ran into the I-85 construction gridlock nightmare that will taint “upstate” South Carolina’s reputation for a decade. Cones, warning beacons, closed lanes, mile after mile after mile. The trip: 12 hours. State welcome center and restrooms: closed. Dinner at 10 PM, McDonald’s drive-through.

Toward the end of the trip I wondered if Virginia just wouldn’t let go. Before we got to Spartanburg the GPS sent us on a six-mile detour into pitch-dark boondocks, passing no buildings, no lights, no other traffic. The device warned of a seven-minute interstate delay. I missed a hidden turn and went around the detour twice.

Reality: unlike at the end of our past trips to Greenville, we can’t turn around. Well, technically we could, if we don’t love this place. Right now we’re in a two-bedroom rental for six months in one of those complexes popular with twenty- and thirty-somethings. But after 41 years in a home of our own, to me, that’s homeless. There’s the deal. People make it every day.

Our kids and grandsons are here. Their nearness impels us to act younger, to take care of ourselves, to think with hope about the future. That means leaving behind the stale old-folks’ habits that were starting to dominate our lives. As time flew by we saw, both of us, the likelihood of sinking permanently into the numbing routines of the Washington, D.C. environs, whose primary product, after all, is hot air. Our friends saw it, too. They all were leaving, or planning to leave, or staying only because of work or family connections.

The whole move enterprise was a convolution of lightening-fast hits and misses. Amanda Carter, the agent, did all the work. Thanks to her, the house transferred to new owners before we knew what happened. Two very strong friends hauled our furniture into the trailer as if it were made of balsa. Other friends bought us lunch, dinner, drinks. The running group gave me a book of memorable photos and a mug engraved with the members’ names.

On the downside we were punished for our cluelessness, over the years, about the need to declutter. We hung on to junk as if it were invisible. At the melodramatic, desperate end I gave away suits and yard furniture, and trashed probably a ton of 30-year-old canceled checks and bank statements, tax returns, kids’ grade-school papers, out-of-date yard-care products, half-empty cans of paint, and countless more basement artifacts. Yet we still exceeded the space allowance in the truck, not able to part with camping gear we never used, distant relatives’ chipped furniture, old lamps, faded documents, and photos of people we don’t recognize.

But the plan, everyone’s plan, is to move forward, always, even in the Social Security years. The alternative is—none, really, except the end, which we can’t predict. Sometimes you backpedal—the oncologist said in his email he was sorry to hit me with the news that I need more treatment the day before the move. But the poor timing was mine, not his.  

It always seemed a little absurd to me that first, someone would want to pay what they paid for our house, and second, they didn’t change their minds. But that’s the other side of the deal. Another family is starting off in our house right about where we started there, with young kids. Their first question was about the schools. They eagerly signed all the papers, happy to get in the place. I wasn’t nearly as relieved to hand over my warrant to get out. I came away numb. Maybe they’ll stay there thirty-plus years, then do what we just did.

Before we left, we drove out to Strasburg to see friends for a day. From their kitchen window you can see Signal Knob, the mysterious, alluring peak at the northern end of the Massanutten Range. I’ve climbed it many times, though not recently. I stood for a few moments staring at it, transfixed by the gentle fall colors, the sharp profile. I wondered whether I’d see it ever again.

We got to Mass yesterday at St. Mary’s in downtown Greenville. Individual chairs were well-spaced, everyone wore masks. Rather than trot out his own opinions, the pastor stunned me with his eloquent, beautiful homily on the lyrics of the hymn, “O What Their Joy,” by the philosopher Peter Abelard (1079-1142), and translated from the Latin by the Anglican scholar John Mason Neale, who devoted his life to serving the ill and homeless. “All lives contain some share of suffering,” said the pastor, “but in the end is Christ.” His words heartened and strengthened us.

As that old Carter Family tune goes, we’re keeping on the sunny side. We’ll be close to some of those we love. I’ve been reading up on the area, the mountains, the lakes, the links to rich history. I was happy to find you can see the Blue Ridge peaks from the entrance to our yuppie-heaven apartment complex. Maybe I’ll persuade some of them to go with me out there, hard against the North Carolina state line. My daughter already sent me information about a local trail running group, the South Carolina Ultra-Marathoners, or SCUM. I smiled.

Of course I’ll give it a go, but at this point that stuff may not exactly work out for me. But even while moving forward, you sometimes have to find a fallback and restart your engine. That’s a metaphor for the medical thing. But we’ll find fresh air and rough beauty wherever we can. Michael, my son, and I talked about climbing Maine’s Mount Katahdin next summer. It’s also the summer of my 50th college reunion in New Hampshire. We’ll have to find a way to make it all work—but now, from the Upstate.