We left the first week of March,
Just as the flowers began to bloom.
Two friends and I decided we would head north come spring.
We had nowhere to go,
nowhere to stay,
little money,
And with no particular plan,
We hopped on a bus to Richmond.
We didn’t know how we’d get there,
Or when
Or where we’d go.
But that was okay.
There was something special in “not knowing.”
Something intruiging.
Something I liked.
Richmond, VA
We arrived in Richmond and met others like us.
We sat in the bus station, singing and dancing with strangers,
Eating cheap french fries and drinking from dollar vending machines.
We made friends with the others.
They too were heading in the same direction.
And so, we went together.
An adventure with strangers.
Somehow, we weren’t afraid
We didn’t think twice.
We caught a ride to Washington from a man named Peter.
Peter was short and a little bit nerdy.
“Can you take us to DC?” we asked.
“Hell yeah,” he responded.
And so we were off.
He let us control the radio.
“No country,” he said.
We smiled and agreed.
Washington, DC
We arrived in DC in the late night,
We waved goodbye to the others and wished them luck.
Fran knew a friend in DC we could stay with.
It was the beginning of a long journey of shared couches for beds
And late nights with unfamiliar faces.
We had a party to get to this night in DC,
But first we headed down the street for a midnight falafel.
The girls in this town seemed to be covered in high fashion pieces
And name brand handbags.
None of them cared to chat with us.
I wondered why, but didn’t think too long about it.
Instead, we requested songs from the DJ and waited with hopeful eyes.
Philly
We caught a ride the following morning to Philly.
There, we stuffed ourselves with freshly baked breads,
Wawa paninis, vegan corndogs, and lots and lots of iced coffee.
We engorged ourselves with free art exhibits,
And sat in old thrift shops, reading whichever book struck our attention first.
We stayed in Philly for a couple days.
There was too much to see in only a day.
We headed to Temple to stay with friends of friends.
There we sat in basements, surrounded by new friendly faces, strombolis, fries, and beer.
We laughed a lot this night.
And with only an hour of sleep under us, we headed the following morning to China Town.
There, at 7am we caught our bus to New York.
New York
We watched the sun rise as we headed into the city that morning.
At 10 a.m. on a Tuesday we sat in China Town with a plate of 3 dollar dumplings.
Our smiles grew with each bite.
We headed for the L train and walked aimlessly around the city,
Purposely getting lost.
There we came across a wall of rocks along the water just across the skyline.
Overlooking the busy city,
We soaked everything in.
Onigiri in one hand and Orangina in the other, we sat on rocks by the water.
The waves crashed upon us as we laid back as the sun danced on our skin.
We closed our eyes and thought to ourselves,
How lucky are we?
We licked our ice cream cones as we sat and waited for the F train to arrive,
When a text arrived telling us our bus back to Philly had been canceled.
We read the words faster than our minds could comprehend them.
Our eyes looked up at each other and with nothing to say we just, laughed.
Sitting on that subway platform in awe, we laughed hysterically and uncontrollably.
I remember our confused and red eyes.
It was so bad,
All we could do was laugh.
And so we ran to Penn Station,
And with only three minutes to spare, we caught a train to Jersey.
There, we grabbed a ride to Philly
And waited as the snow began to fall.
It seemed winter wasn’t quite ready to go.
Home
A few days later we headed home,
with wet hair and oversized clothing.
CD after CD, we sang along with the speakers as we headed home.
Twelve inches of snow sat on the ground that morning, and yet somehow it felt like summer.
I felt content.
I felt happy.
There was nowhere to go
and yet everywhere to go.
I sat that day with tired eyes and worn out shoes.
Everything that could have gone wrong on the trip went wrong.
It was filled with missed busses, cancelled trains,
Expected trips,
And unfamiliar faces.
It was unpredictable
It was wild
And just like us,
It was perfectly imperfect.
