Walking a Mile in My Shoes

Wendy Plump, Department of Chemistry

Princeton Writes Prize

This is not going to be a breathless pandemic celebration of Point Pleasant, my hometown in Pennsylvania. I’ve only noticed it because there’s been nowhere else to go for two years. Since the day we moved in, I’ve wanted to move out. I enjoy disdaining it. I grew up downriver in New Hope, which has all the requisites of civilization, starting with espresso and a bookshop. Point Pleasant has neither. Nor stores. Nor a restaurant. It has one sad church that few attend and one stop sign that few observe. It has a population of, like, six. An insufferable ridge, practically a massif, soars up behind our house and blocks the sunlight so that we live in perpetual shadow. The Delaware River is 200 yards away beyond a muddy canal, which itself speaks of decline and is currently choked with duckweed.

Adventure travel is my sine qua non. Paddle boarding. Bungee jumping. Backcountry trekking. The pandemic thwarted all that, so instead I desperately hike my neighborhood. It’s bordered by deep forests of pine and sugar maple and rocky streams, which makes it sound so very idyllic. Don’t believe it. Just upriver, half-drowned houses with faded “For Sale by Owner” signs slowly molder away into nothing. At night, if our windows are open, I hear front doors falling off of hinges.

I want the pandemic to end so we can get out of here. Revive the sense that we’re citizens of the world rather than citizens of the back porch. Because now, to get my travel fix, I open my front door and step merely onto my lawn. I turn sharp left and head up Swagger Road—which has nothing to swagger about—to see what’s up there. Owing to a complete lack of curiosity, I’ve never done this before, and we’ve lived here for three years. I walk warily. I hew to skepticism. I’m afraid of dogs and hermits, so I carry pepper spray, which I will use if I have to. Just a warning.

The walk begins ominously. I’m immediately plunged into a forest so dense and stuffed with trees that my skin goes green. It’s. So. Quiet. I look around for hermits, certain someone is following me. A wall of rock up against the road is covered in spongy, fairy-green moss. If I were a snail, this is where I would live. There are bluebells and giant ferns and, far above, turkey vultures surfing wind gyres. I walk farther uproad and admit to a grudging appreciation of tiny homes clinging to the hillside and the adroit use of boulders as mailboxes. Soon I pass a house with a do-it-yourself headstone rising out of the front yard. Its face is tipped away from me, so I cannot tell if it marks a pet or a person. Could be either. Point Pleasant is a rogue community, never incorporated, and people make their own rules here. Our scary next-door neighbor, for instance, has a broken derrick parked in her front yard. Since August.

This is where I live. Gentleman farms and abandoned shacks co-exist in a kind of solipsistic harmony. I can hail from my front porch Ferrari-driving New Yorkers and, minutes later, a neighbor hulking along in an NRA hat with woodchips on his shoulder. They say Pennsylvania is a microcosm of America. But you could also say that Bucks County is a microcosm of America. Wealth and poverty, privilege and want, farmers and moguls live in proximity here, ignoring each other. There’s a rumor that Leonardo DiCaprio owns a weekend home nearby, as also the model Bella Hadid. I haven’t spotted either, but hope springs eternal. Last weekend, a string of McLarens went by our house, each one driven by a smug, unshaven millennial. Then, 10 minutes later, a crowd of motorcyclists straight out of a Hell’s Angels lineup. I would pay good money to see those two groups pause for a meet-cute in nearby Tinicum Park.

For hours I walk along country roads so precipitous they look like they were dropped from an airplane. Half the time I’m breathless, and the other half, dizzy. At least there are well-tended eponymous farms to ogle: Comfort Road where is Comfort Farm; Paxson Road where is Paxson Farm. These are quiet, meadowy places full of daisies and cows, tall grass and stone barns. I resist the temptation to appreciate them. If I’m going to be in the company of cows, then I’d rather be in Ireland. That would mean we’re traveling again and being homebound for two years was a test of confinement we managed to transcend.

Alas, we’re still in Point Pleasant.

Eventually, of course, I get lost. This area has a Bermuda Triangle-like effect on cell phones, and I cannot pull up my GPS. At an unpaved crossroads up in the woods, I stand glancing around stupidly until some guy pulls up in his Ford F-250, tires crunching on gravel. He tells me I’m on Sawmill Road (I re-holster my pepper spray), and we chat undisturbed in the intersection. He and his wife are spending $595 a week on groceries, he says. We bond over this shared supply-chain treachery in a conversation that probably wouldn’t happen anywhere else. He waves out the window as he drives off. I just adore him.

I wander miles from home with no idea where I am. But I like putting new things in front of my eyes, which was once the point of travel: Sedona. Alaska. St. Lucia. But at least birds swoop overhead. The sky burns blue. Cars are so rare their drivers actually slow down on approach and wave at me. They are charmed. It’s unusual to see someone walking out here in the middle of nowhere, swishing a stick. Singing.

By accident, I end up walking down the most beautiful road I’ve never previously known about. At first I wasn’t even sure it was a road. Would it simply terminate against a wall? It’s only as wide as four goats, and irresolutely paved. Forests rear up on both sides. And what’s this? The prettiest cabin replete with chickens, a pond, and a grist mill. Majestic pines frame it perfectly, and the grass in the adjacent pasture is tipped in silver. This is getting ridiculous. Is Netflix shooting a movie around here?

Miles later, a full day of aimless wandering in the books later, I wind up back home feeling like I’ve been to another country, thank God. The dogs are waiting for me along with John, who’s been out cycling, challenging himself on these selfsame roads. I shuck my hiking boots and sit in the driveway where the single ray of sunshine that penetrates to our yard warms me through. Sure, it sounds peaceful. But I cannot wait for the pandemic to end so we can travel again. So we can go someplace where the traffic is noisier than the birds. So I can remind myself that the world is large, various, and beautiful. As compared with Point Pleasant.

However, I do throw a wave at a Tesla driving slowly by. It’s packed with New Yorkers who peer out the windows, their mouths hanging open. They look slightly envious. And why not? I live here, I want to tell them, and you don’t. The pandemic, damn its hide, has made me realize why. And for that, obviously, there will be no forgiveness.