Route 9

March 11, 2023

Route 9 is a long 2-hour stretch of road in Maine from Bangor to Calais. If you have driven this road, you have encountered these giant wind turbines. At first, they can be seen from a distance. But then, they disappear from view and reappear after a bend in the road and a climb up a hill. Boom. There it is. This humongous, man-made, moving majestic object. My immediate reaction is, “Wow!” Like a visual shot of exhilaration. It’s one of my favorite little surprises when traveling this otherwise quiet, long, rural road.

My daughter informed me she did not like those things. At all. I could not understand her reality. She said there is such a thing as megalophobia, a fear of large objects. I had no idea such a fear existed, nor that she felt this. 

Now, I am a person who has experienced panic attacks from the young age of eight. Granted my first panic attack occurred once in third grade and I probably didn’t experience another until college. The first occurred while watching what seemed like a pretty graphic movie of the crucifixion in the dreary cold basement of our school's Catholic Church (thank you Saint Pat’s for that). Close to this time of year, all packed in a row in our winter coats. A perfect storm, to be watching what seemed like my brother, who I related as a Jesus-like kind of person, donned with a woven crown of thorns, producing streams of blood down his face, while slowly tortured on his walk to his slow and painful death, all while baking in my winter coat.

Frankly, I’m surprised I was the only person who was having an issue with this film. Anyway, I almost fainted. Like the game telephone, I whispered to my classmate next to me, “Tell Miss Grasso I don’t feel so good.” From my end of the row to the other where my savior sat, Miss Grasso saved me, taking me to the ice-cold marble steps in the hallway, where the coolness of those steps and her kind voice soothed me back to safety. Granted, I didn’t know that was a panic attack I was experiencing. Nor did I know in college days after hearing the news of a fellow student dying in a car crash, that the difficulty breathing, while feeling intense fear over nothing in particular, was also a panic attack. I would not understand these more frequent experiences as such until much later in life. One of the things that intensifies panic attacks is the isolation one feels while they are happening. So to not even know it had a name and other people experience them too, I think helped to make them that much worse. However, knowing what a panic attack is doesn’t eliminate them from one’s life nor relieve their agony. Maybe it only eliminates the notion that you are the only one who feels them.

But, panic attacks are not really what I wanted to touch on about these turbines on Route 9.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been listening to very smart people talk about the two hemispheres of the human brain. And how the right hemisphere is where all the magical, mystical, spiritual, in-flow kinds of thoughts/experiences happen. And the left is where all the logical, practical thoughts happen. And how we need both, but most of us get it wrong to live more in the left hemisphere. To think the lists and structuring of life are what life is all about. We have it backward. The left side is like the secretary for the right brain. The right brain is the brilliant mind that doesn’t have the wherewithal to structure anything. So needs the secretary to do all that.

Fear does not live in the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere knows everything is all one. All connected. It’s where coincidences happen that aren’t at all coincidences, but natural connections. When we are living in our left brain, our mind is too busy making plans and figuring things out so we don’t get hurt, or lose control, or end up slowly tortured to our death (sorry I just had to give a little dig to my old school).

Oddly enough, but then again not really, I’ve been experiencing coincidences. I dreamt an old friend had died and I was very sad in the dream to hear this news. Then later that day, I happened to be passing her road, which I don’t do regularly. The dream nudged me to reach out to her to see if she is okay. Thankfully, she’s fine. We had a nice chat, catching up on each other’s lives. As we were ending our conversation, I told her I had that dream about her. She told me she had just found out a dear friend had terminal cancer and that I was probably picking up on her sadness about that. Normally, I would not take much credit for being so psychic because I know people who have that gift and I don’t compare to that level of intuitiveness. But I completely felt she was correct. At another moment recently, I had a strong thought about a cousin who lost his husband several months ago, and that I really needed to check in with him. Then I see on Facebook a post from him of an array of photos of their lives together. Normally I’d second guess the connection, but this time it just was as clear as a bell. I was picking up on his reminiscing about the love of his life. Right hemisphere stuff.

One of the things about Route 9 is, like a plane ride might feel like a suspension of time, sometimes so can Route 9. And right hemisphere activation can happen. Daydreaming. Listening to music that moves you. I sang a James Taylor tune over and over for a good portion of the ride with one of my favorite people on my mind. If I keep on talkin’ now, I’d only start repeating myself. And all I can say is I love you...”

And sometimes it is a treacherous road. Some horrific fatal accidents and near accidents happen here. Sometimes to be completely in one's left brain is a necessity.

To me, Route 9 is a perfect example of the extreme polarities of caution and being in blissed-out flow. On this beautiful sunny, almost spring day where you can almost believe winter is over, l happily live in the right hemisphere, with the left hemisphere where it should be...in the background, supporting right brain flow, keeping an eye on the road. I experience this with a healthy dose of knowledge that it ain't always so on this road.

This morning, I finally stopped, after countless times of coming upon these wind turbines, to take a photo. Mindful, they are feared by some. Knowing full well there have been so many more things I've feared irrationally, that seemed like no one else had.

Grateful that I find them wonderous.