Tales of the Road

I would venture to say that the one thing that sets America's culture apart from most others-- "culture" in the sense of folklore, music, literature, and arts, that is-- is our obsession with the road.  For other societies, the road only seems useful as a means to get somewhere.  "All roads lead to" someplace; or the main character is taking "the rocky road to" somewhere.  In the Cantibury Tales, a pivotal work in British literature, the road is treated almost despondently; it's our antagonist.  The stories which are told by the characters in that particular piece are the cure to having to put up with the lousy, miserable road.  The road is the waste and rubbish of global literature.

And like flies, we Americans swarm to it.  All our folk heroes suffer the same fate ("Some say he went to...  Other claim they last saw him in...").  We're the people of Johnny Appleseed, Easy Rider, Jack Kerouac, Bobby Mcgee, and hundreds of comedic situations involving chicken trucks that happen to pass by at just the right time.

We write songs about roads.  Many, many songs about many, many roads.

I think that this adoration speaks volumes about our collective mindset.  And, daily, I'm given just cause to reflect upon our love affair with travel and asphalt.  I take I-10 to church.  I'll be driving the Ventura Highway to my new job.  And today I had the pleasure of being personally introduced to Route 1, more affectionately known as the Pacific Coast Highway.  There is probably a song that's written about Route 1 as well, but a song couldn't do it justice.   I know that there had to be blasting, and hammering, and drilling, and shoveling to construct that highway, but the way that her black ribbon lies gracefully and delicately as a buffer between the restless power of the ocean and the resolute stillness of the mountains; the way that it somehow seems to fit in, even while surrounded by a land so untameable, contributes to an unnerving sense that the road belongs and that the traveler does not.

Of course the traveler doesn't belong.  And therein lies the beauty, bitter-sweet and unchangeable.  Therein lies our obsession, and our commitment to the journey, regardless of where it may take us.  And, readily, we accept that for all of our yearning to go somewhere else or achieve something more, we must pay a price.

Last week, I stood on the pier where The Mother-Road, Route 66, either starts or finishes depending on whether the person traveling would rather be in Chicago or Santa Monica.  It was like a carnival.  Street performers entertained passers-by, there was a ferris wheel, and trapeze artists.  It was fitting that the artery that was the American Adventure for so long had that celebratory feel.  "Here's the ocean!  You've made it!"  This week, referring to the other side of that circuit, for the first time since I've been here, I thought to myself "I wish I could have been there."

I had missed the first marriage among my cousins on my Mother's side, in Chicago.

The couple chose this particular weekend because it fell on the ten year mark of September 11, which is oddly fitting since they are a police officer and paramedic.  I'm not the only one who missed it, from what I understand.  My uncle* flew to New York to participate in ceremonies, in order to honor his fellow firefighters that had died during the attacks ten years ago.

I've had other things going on, besides these melancholy little tidbits.  I just ran the longest run of my life today, at sixteen miles.  I've submitted some writings just for fun to see if anything comes out of it.  I've met people, had laughs, and whatnot.  But, as light-hearted as I typically like to be when I write these correspondences, I think that it would be unfair to pretend that everything's fine all of the time.  And this marks the ten year anniversary of what I can say without flinching was unequivocally the worst day of my life.  Obviously, it was unspeakably worse for many, many other people than I'll ever begin to imagine.

But, as with the rest of the nation, I know that the worst things that anybody can throw at me will someday be part of the journey.  We are, after all, the nation in love with the road.  I am, after all, fortunate enough to be a traveler.  And to live dedicated to the ideals of travel is to take up a covenant to endure also the hunger pangs and heartaches that come with it.  The solace of this being that, as long as we remain committed to our roads, someday the worst of these things will be left behind on the journey, regardless in how long and in what way we choose to carry them.

During the darkest of these periods (of which we've had many, lately), there will still be the sunsets and wildflowers all around us, if we bother to look.  The roads will still lead us through innumerable placid places, and provide us with ample opportunity to drop our bags and be privy to all that these offer, be it ever so briefly.  The lessons that we learn will be the ones that we choose to; the emotions we feel will be the ones we decide upon.  We have an indelible freedom to do this as we see fit.  That's why I, personally, have always loved, and will always love the road.  That includes even the unsavory parts.

Kim, Josh, I really wish that I could have been there.  I love you, and I'll see you both soon enough.

Take care of her.





*Cousin once-removed, or second cousin, or whatever.