Today, I am driving to the end of the northernmost paved road in all of Canada. It reaches all the way up to the side of St. James Bay, the dramatic dimple dipping down out of Hudson Bay.
What’s up there? Little else besides separation, besides distance itself.
I’m making the trip with my 18 year-old son, just a couple of weeks before he leaves our home to go off to college. I still feel as close to him as I ever have. None of my fears, inspired by the stereotypes of grumpy teenagers, came true. We still hug and tell each other that we love each other every day.
Soon, there will be a distance between us. As I confront that fact, with a strange combination of pride and mourning, I am feeling the distance between my present self and the youth of my past.
My son and I are making a pilgrimage together, into the cool subarctic, to mark the road we have already traveled together at home.
Our emotional lives are not restricted to words that are specifically devoted to emotion alone. We speak metaphorically, using words that literally refer to objects of spaces, in order to talk about how we feel.
When we tell people that we’re feeling distant, nobody mistakes what we’re saying as a declaration of physical distance. They understand that we’re talking about an emotional distance, a kind of alienation between where our bodies stand and where our hearts reside. Anybody might reach out and touch us, but we are nonetheless out of reach.
My son and I are going the distance today because we are close, but we must journey to another kind of space. It’s a reminder that our physical displays and our emotional truths move in opposite directions.
