Sometimes it only takes a few words and then BAM! you’re in love. It happened with Richard. And now again with John. Travels with Charley had been recommended to me for the third time. And you know what they say.
Having hunted down a copy of my own, I sit on the beach under gray skies. Bundled up against the ocean breeze I lie back. Rest my head on a snoring Baylor and devour each word.
There are the obvious reasons I fall in love with John. He writes and travels with his dog. He loves back roads and avoids interstates. He finds the most basic of human interactions fascinating.
And there are the less obvious reasons I love him. He willingly pokes fun at himself. He finds modern cities sterile, seeks out small towns with character instead. He has a curious mind, a quick wit and a kind heart.
But most of all, I love John because he makes me feel less crazy. Shows me there are others out there with a never squelched wanderlust. Proves that even in different times and circumstances there’s magic to be found in exploring. Brings to life the tiny adventures of living on the road that intertwine imperceptibly with the mundane tasks necessary to carry on.
I’m hooked from the very beginning when he writes,
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch, When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked…In other words, I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.
I often wonder if I just need to reach a certain threshold and then the wanderlust will be satiated. If once I’ve visited all of North America I’ll be satisfied. But then I think, it’s just one continent. That means there are six more to explore. And by the time I get around to seeing every place possible, everything will have changed. Time will have passed and I’ll have been molded into an entirely new person. At which point I’ll just need to start over, see it all again. Incurable indeed.
Later I find myself laughing aloud when he writes,
It was obvious that the other tire might go at any moment, and it was Sunday and it was raining and it was Oregon. If the other tire blew, there we were, on a wet and lonesome road, having no recourse except to burst into tears and wait for death.
I’m intimately familiar with this feeling. Surely felt this way standing in the middle of nowhere Yukon. And from here on out, any time I face a challenge I’ll think, there’s clearly no recourse except to burst into tears and wait for death. I love that sentiment. Wish I’d thought of it myself.
Nodding in agreement, I read,
It would be pleasant to be able to say of my travels with Charley, “I went out to find the truth about my country and I found it.” And then it would be such a simple matter to set down my findings and lean back comfortable with a fine sense of having discovered truths and taught them to my readers. I wish it were that easy. But what I carried in my head and deeper in my perceptions was a barrel of worms. I discovered long ago in collecting and classifying marine animals that what I found was closely intermeshed with how I felt at the moment. External reality has a way of being not so external after all.
At times beautiful places have gone unnoticed as my mind churns and wanders. Other times I declare a place my absolute favorite for no tangible reason. Feelings are inescapable. Silently sneaking in and coloring memories as they see fit.
Book finished, I flip back to the beginning. Reread the intro and smile at this truth,
We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.
135 days down. Many to come.
