After spending a few weeks on the road experiencing unexplainable highs and undeterminable lows, I have begun to craft my own definition of "the road," at least as it was to me at some national forest in Idaho. The road will be a much different thing for you, but this is what it is for me:
Figuring out things you will never really figure out: Part I
Unraveling, paved, but rigid and reckless – the roads in passing.
Loops and hoops and straightaways
tell us the ways of should,
but will is determined by colorful billboard signs and sudden deflations in tire pressure and a golden yellow reminder of E.
We walk and drive and sometimes trip on paths and roads that we assume will take us to where we want to go,
and when we are running and racing along these pre-determined paths that we discover
or the infinite souls we choose to leave alone that we encounter
across every bridge, under every freeway, and stopped at each red–
it's the moments
when time suddenly becomes irrelevant and a 2003 silver pathfinder deters the journey with a blast of black tar leading otherwise unexpected meetings and strangers for life to become Hollys and Robins and other names with stories of life and living and tan duplexes with green shutters–
the clock of adventure freezes
and the keeper of time of a new encounter begins.
And two girls seeking something greater than stop signs and yellow lines finally find what they're looking for which has never really been determined outside of career goals and family sizes because this world screams out against diversion and differences
and desires a two-lane highway full of people wanting to visit potato museums and walk up the sidewalks of manmade happiness of
what is and what should be
worth discovering because we are not allowed to use our minds creativily and in thinking of running away, but should only use them to
conform.
No. It's becoming that statistic that classifies you
as "other"
because you're not black or white–you're grey,
and the world doesn't like grey.
But let me tell you that the world doesn't get to determine your journey–
it's no longer going somewhere to validate your level of cool on your "friends'" list of qualities that make you something that you're not–
it's saying I want to go because–
because I don't have to justify my love of wandering with you.
I go because nothing
and no one
and no place
is the road,
but the road.
The road is what it can be
and what it will be for you
anywhere nowhere everywhere all at once.
The road is what it is and
that I cannot tell you.
