Delaware has three counties. I learned this once I was trekking around it. I knew it was small, but had to visit to understand the scope of it.
I came to Delaware from an academic conference in Philadelphia, the first trip I had made since my father died that April. The loss two months before had an unexpectedly large impact on my travels because, for the first time in my life, nobody was at the other end of a phone line waiting for me to call and tell them I had arrived safely. This made the world seem unexpectedly big and full of strangers, and robbed me of the necessary courage one must have to venture out in it alone. Before that trip, I did not know courage was a requirement, but once it was missing, I had this nagging stab of unexpected grief. I kept reminding myself that I had traveled alone many times before and would grow to love it again. I had been distracted throughout the conference, disoriented by being back at my graduate school without my father–who had lived with me while I was there–and always looking to rush back home so he would not be lonely or hungry, only to be caught up in the memory that a part of my life had passed forever.
I might have scrapped everything and returned home early to my cocoon, but for a planned trip to a Delaware beach with an old friend from my college days who joined me from Washington, DC. Lewes sits across the Delaware Bay from Cape May, New Jersey–a place I had plans to visit when my mother was diagnosed and my time as a care giver began. So I was returning nearly full circle by coming to Lewes. So began my time in Delaware; I chased away a pervasive feeling of heartbreak with good company, decadent food, and a gorgeous sunset.