Ain't No Highways

Taking the scenic route

Baby there ain’t no shortcuts on your way
Baby there ain’t no highways in these parts
You know baby gonna have to drive yourself down every little windy road
If you really wanna get to where you’re going

-Heather Maloney, No Shortcuts

Photo by stephan cassara on Unsplash

I’ve been taking the scenic route back from yoga and meditation lately. Those of you who have an idea where I live might be thinking, “wait…isn’t is all scenic route?” And you wouldn’t be wrong. If I take the “fast” way, I turn from my nearly quarter-mile gravel driveway onto a bumpy private road, then a slightly bigger road, before finally getting to first one windy two-lane state road, then another.

The back way skips the center line completely, commanding the full attention of the driver. Meeting an oncoming car means both of you slow down, scootch over a little, give a courtesy wave, and drive on.

The “fast” way saves me about five minutes on a good day. The scenic route invites me to really take a good look around. To slow down and enjoy the journey. Road names like State Route 55 are replaced by signs that say things like “Parker Hollow.” You’ll pass more than one country church, too many cows to count, little streams. It may actually take a bit longer than that “extra” five minutes because the temptation is so strong to pull over and take a few photos. And really - why not?

I wish I could say that I started taking the back way out of a primordial pull toward calm and ease, but what really prompted it was a traffic accident on the main road that almost caused me to be late one day. Taking the “slow” way home actually saved me a few minutes - and was so much more pleasant that I continued to go that way, not always, but often. It was a nice reminder that faster isn’t always faster.

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It’s been a year now - Earth Day 2025 - since I left my federal job and dug in to my “dream vacation”, which in my case looks like a wild garden patch of homesteading, health coaching, teaching yoga, cottage baking, logging some paid hours in front of spreadsheets (I did not, apparently, quite reach escape velocity from all aspects of my former work), and somewhere in there finding time for all the other things that nourish me.

I had big plans for this anniversary post. In one version, I’ve found my way to a soft life where I earn six figures in exchange for four hours a week of work. The growth gurus promised that could happen if I just manifested hard enough. I’ve discovered something weird, though, something that I think probably makes me a bad capitalist (but hopefully a good farmer): I seem to enjoy work, independent of the financial rewards (although this is probably a great time to note that you’re always welcome to throw something in the tip jar.)

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with three friends who had also taken a version of the federal “Fork”, departing their careers sooner than expected, for a wide-ranging, hilarious, and soulful conversation that I plan - just as soon as I get to editing it! - to share with you all. Since I’m a much more enthusiastic interviewer than audio editor, all I can do for the moment is tease the highlights with a spoiler: turns out, none of us regrets the decision or wants to go back. Instead, we’ve been enjoying the surprising things that show up when every day is allowed to look slightly different. We’ve also all developed mild-to-severe allergies to being boxed in. And all of us are, in one way or another, taking the scenic route to whatever comes next.

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This spring has been full of good reminders about the futility of taking shortcuts. The weather has continued to ping-pong hot to cold and back again. Trees that blossomed too early, responding to that first warmth, aren’t doing as well as those that held on a bit longer, biding their time. In my greenhouse, tomato and peppers impatiently begun in February now wait another few weeks - average last frost is May 11th, and setting them out too early would likely mean three months of wasted effort. A new rooster introduced to the flock with more haste than planned caused some temporary chaos before harmony was restored.

Taking my cue from the spring, and from the scenery along the back road, I too am meandering, biding my time, working to release attachments to “my” timing and plans and instead really watching to see what appears around each corner. A year out, I occasionally still wonder whether the main road might not have been a bit smoother, a little more direct, maybe even reduced wear and tear on my vehicle. But the thing is, I’ve stopped believing in direct routes. The time you save always disappears somewhere else. And the drive is much more fun when you don’t have to focus on staying between the lines.