“The road is ready for everyone, but not everyone is ready for the road,” said Kull, a man who gave me a ride in the countryside of Western Arkansas. These words, like so many others, coupled with the faces and names to which they are attached ricochet within the chambers of my remembrance as I look back on the past many months of my life. So many words form and then dissolve as I try to capture some thread that I might follow to recount or at least debrief the story of my most recent adventures. I have traveled all of my life. I inherited traveling much as one might gain some family recipe or the list of recipients for Christmas Cards. Like for the recipe, I was first taken through the steps as a child would normally be, watching a family member create the dish they are to become so fond of. But, as with the child that is destined first to gain a sweet tooth, and then doubly doomed by becoming a baker, the process of enjoying and providing myself with travel recalls the earlier memories but stands on its own feet having become an art and experience beyond the reach of my younger self.
I have gone farther from home on almost every real trip I have ever taken before this one, but within my own perceptions and in tracing the nebulous outline which defines my self I have perhaps never gone so far. A little more than a year ago, were I to examine my knowledge of love, of faith, of despair, of trust, and so many other gems that grant us the depth of our humanity, I would surely have found my previous experiences had well-informed and developed my awareness and understanding. I have tried to live my life passionately and freely and I think I have lived it well for how short it has been. I could not have guessed that I would find so much about these things in this year such that it might contend with all those before it. I’m not going to talk about the deep ideological and political struggles I witnessed and was afloat in. Nor do I find this the time or place to begin to craft some epic poem describing all the harrowing adventures I had as I tried to survive and thrive on the road. Instead, I want to let this be a deep breath after the Odyssey, where I look you in the eyes and perhaps through my words the transformation wrought by the journey is made clear.
I covered more than 15000 miles of road this year, all of it spent with total strangers or long lost friends. I hitchhiked on the backs of pickups and with families in their minivans. I snuck onto buses and trains. I slept on streets, in mansions, and in more trees than I could count. I lived without a penny to my name for weeks sometimes, and having already exhausted all my savings for many months. I met hobos, hillbillies, rockstars, and leaders in business and politics. I learned that we are all the same and that also there is no common man. Most importantly I realized that I can. I can live a life trusting in complete strangers and the whims of fate because however we try to hide it, we all must. I learned that no dollar is as valuable as the next stranger you have the good fortune to speak to. There is no dark and dangerous street that someone has not had to call a home. There is no expensive and beautiful place that cannot be made to feel like a prison. Happiness, freedom, wealth, friendship- all these things are more internal than external. They cannot be given if they are not ready to be received and for those who know how to really have them they can never be taken.
I think anyone’s life can be examined from the question of how they have lived with fear. I think our entire society is a means of mitigating our fears. Every thing around us seeks to distance us from our fears. For our health and sanity I’m sure there was some point to which it was necessary, but it has all run away from us now. The world must constantly create new fears to justify itself as old fears are vanquished. It is through our fear of change, change to our wellbeing and to our security and to our ideologies, that we allow the most disastrous changes to be wrought. We have changed the natural world around us, our bodies, our diets, our ways of interacting and caring, and most of these changes have occurred because we were afraid. We fear each other, our governments, nature, and ourselves. But what if we didn‘t?
I’m not worried about anyone else’s answer anymore. I don’t hold anyone’s choices against them. This world will not be saved or ruined by anything I think. This world will not be saved or ruined. Making a decision does not need to mean that decision is right for anyone else. Choosing to do something does not need to be decided based upon how likely it is to be successful. Living should not happen out of fear of dying but if anything a fear of not living. I’m done with everything that is not living.
The past few years of my life may outwardly have had the appearance of this shift, but trust me the decision was an internal one recently made and perhaps it needs to be remade every day. I am not afraid to die poor and starving on some street somewhere. I am not afraid that my life will pass without having made a difference. I am not afraid of being forgotten. I am not afraid of being alone or sick or successful. I welcome all those things. Whatever my story is destined to be I am completely at peace with. My life will pass and will be whatever it was but I can drink every moment for what it is worth. I don’t need a plan, a safety net, a fallback, or anything. Every day will bring what it needs, be it hardship or plenty. What I need and what I have is passion. Passion for the things I love to live my life doing and compassion for all those other things living theirs. I will wake up every morning I can, high in a tree, greeted by the dances of leaves. I will touch down to the earth and take off at a run, vaulting and flipping over the world we have found and created. I will converse with others in word or in movement and share our experiences of this organic spaceship we hug to the surface of. I will have ideas big and small. I will not let them rule me, but I will follow them for so long as they tug upon my heart and foster my loves. I will leave. Not tomorrow or next month, but soon, sooner than I can sometimes bear, on adventures that have no end. I will leave on foot and by thumb and head west until I hit ocean. I will talk my way over sea or air until I’m on land and then continue the process repeated. I will learn every language I can, climb trees, master my arts every day with all my strength, be hungry, be poor, be lost, be helpful, be a shoulder to cry on and a hand for the fallen, and I will be happy as I am right now no matter where I am and what is happening. I will write books I may never publish and scribble poems I may never share, invent moves and forget them, learn words and leave them behind. I will tell stories and listen to others. Nothing is as valuable to the human mind as the story, and I will be a very wealthy man.
I don’t know if I’ll continue this blog or not, but I’ll give some thoughts. Not advice, but these things help open doors for me all the time. Smile and mean it. Hug, and when you do, realize that every hug may be both of your last on this world. Trees are better than any gym anyone can build. Do what ever you love every day because then no matter what happens, a day will never feel wasted. If you’re a traveler find something you love to do and don’t give it up because of the road, in fact bring it with you and hold it close. Drink lots of water.
You've acquired an acceptance of the journey Camilo . . . the temporariness. . . the fragility . . . you have gained so much insight and untapped the subtleties of the miracle of living. Please share more. -Author/Activist Robert P Francis
ReplyDeleteYour journey and story continue to fuel my own journey. I am always following your story Camillo. Looking forward to the chapters ahead.
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