Getting to Know I-95

I am at my parents' house in Lexington for the weekend watching the dog while they're away. I took a long walk by Beaver Brook this morning, soaking in the spring air, and yesterday I took "Joanne" the family minivan out to Stoneham for a work project. I have done a lot of driving this week in general. I drove to Vermont on Monday to catch the once-in-a-century solar eclipse that passed through northern New England. I had not been planning to go, but on a whim I decided to take a chance, call out of work, and try to make it to the path of totality.

I left the office at 10:30 AM with the eclipse scheduled to pass through around 3:30. I borrowed my Nani's Audi and left the city via I-93. 93 took me to Concord New Hampshire, a familiar route, where I hit my first stretch of heavy traffic. Tons of unorganized eclipse viewers like myself trying to make it North. At the junction, I switched onto I-89 with the hope of making it to Montpelier within the path of totality, but as I neared the White River Junction on the border of New Hampshire and Vermont, the traffic en route to Montpelier started looking worse.

At the last minute, I made the call to bail on Montpelier and try to high tail it up Route 91 along the Connecticut River and the border of VT and NH to get as far north as I could get before the eclipse hit. It was my only chance to get to totality in time. Mercifully, 91 was mostly clear and I drove north as the light of the sky turned silvery. I hit traffic a mile south of the line and exited onto VT Route 5, ripping through rolling hills past sheep and dairy cows and gorgeous countryside. Cars were pulled onto both sides of the highway, onlookers out in the grass with glasses on sitting in lawn chairs and staring at the sky. I pulled to the side of the road at 3:25 PM and saw thirty seconds of totality at 3:28 sitting in the grass by the banks of the river with all the other strangers who had come the same way - a half-mile north of the line.

As I watched the eclipse happen above my head, I thought of Annie Dillard. On the eclipse she witnessed on the grassy hills of Yakima, she writes, "From all the hills came screams. A piece of the sky beside the crescent sun was detaching…I saw a circular piece of that sky appear, suddenly detached, blackened, and backlighted; from nowhere it came and overlapped the sun. It did not look like the moon. It was enormous and black. If I had not read that it was the moon, I could have seen the sight a hundred times and never thought of the moon once…It looked like a lens cover, or the lid of a pot. It materialized out of thin air — black, and flat, and sliding, outlined in flame." I am so glad I made the trip.

I must admit that in spite of what cars have done to the planet, I love driving - especially in the summer. I like to think that I made it to the eclipse because I know these New England highways so well from all my summers driving up north. There is a special kind of familiarity that you come to know along an oft-traced route, remembering landmarks, each turn and exit, towns you have never been to but whose names you have memorized off the signs along the way. It is a fluid way of knowing a place.

I have grown into that fluid familiarity on the stretch of I-95 between Boston and Providence, having driven it many times during the past few years going up and down to visit my partner. When I lived with my folks and had access to a car, I would head down every other weekend, and she would come up on the Providence-Stoughton Commuter Rail line. Though we have been hoping to live in the same city for a while, COVID and life got in the way, and we got used to making medium-distance work.

I have come to love that stretch of highway. It takes an hour on the dot to get down, and it makes me think of rolling the windows down in the summer, music blasting, singing to myself going 70 in the fast lane, and of course it reminds me of her. If you have listened to my first song, Beaver Brook Waltz, you might have sensed that a lot of the music I am putting out is about places. Does sixty miles of highway count as a place? Does a seat on a moving train? To me they do, and like the place where we met or our favorite date spots, those places are part of our love story. That's what Highway Life is all about.

As with all of the songs I release, Highway Life would not have been possible without a lot of hard work from a whole lot of people. I am grateful to Ian Downie (AKA Edward Glen) for working on this record with me every step of the way. To Sam Eastman for helping throughout the whole recording process and for lending me the 12-string that makes the guitars on this song sound so huge. Thank you again to Ian van Opijnen for the mixing and mastering. We couldn't have done it without you.

Highway Life

I met a woman from south Massachusetts

Just east of the Rhode Island line

She said “kiss me already, I know that you want to” 

Just with the look in those pretty brown eyes

Those pretty brown eyes

But I choked and asked her just what she was thinking

What thoughts had been crossing her mind

She said “baby well it won’t be no fun if I tell you

Just take a guess and let’s see if you’re right”

And she kissed me that night

Now I’m making my way down the fast lane on I-95

And your finding a seat on the tracks of the Providence Line

Yeah I’m making my way down south for the very first time

Gonna try living this highway life

And you said to me “babe, let’s go down to my hometown

I’m sorry there ain’t much to do”

“‘cept my great-grandpa’s farm and brunch at the diner

No streetlights, we’ll drive by the light of the moon”

So we rolled down the windows and you played Frank Ocean

As we watched the country roll by

And we talked ‘bout how one day we’d move to the city

All this time on the road has been making us tired

Now I’m building a house on the fast lane down I-95

And you’re feeling at home on the tracks of the Providence Line

And someday I’ll head back up north for the very last time

But for now I’m living this highway life

It’s been a year of back and forth

Getting to know every crack in the road

And the deer that was hit by exit 24 

Is a pile of withered old bones

The work has dried up and we’re all strung out

But someday Imma buy us a home

Put five thousand more miles on this four-wheeled house

Turns out I ain’t built for a life on the road

For a life on the road

So I’ll trade in my house on the fast lane down I-95

For a one-room apartment right next to the providence line

And next time I head north I swear it’ll be the last time

Cause I’m tired of living this highway life

Yes I’m tired of living this highway life

Written by Isaiah Johnson Summer 2021

Arranged by Isaiah Johnson

Recorded by Isaiah Johnson, Ian Downie, and Sam Eastman

Mixed and Mastered by Ian van Opijnen at Echoroom Media

Isaiah Johnson: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, 12-String Acoustic Guitar, Bass, Tambourine

Ian van Opijnen: Pad

Google Photos heat map of all the photos I've taken - notice the concentration between Boston and Providence.