Show and Tell

Although I have plenty of writing about historical books I've been reading, personal experiences and how everything winds together poetically, I keep getting these intuitive feelings that I'm not supposed to publish them tonight.  In fact, the negative intuition was really starting to bother me, so I found this writing that I created exactly one year ago and decided to post this instead.  I hope you enjoy!

Hi.

How are you today?

How is life treating you?

What do you have, and what do you want, and what is making you happy, right now?

I am happy right now.  If you aren’t, you will be again.

I am in my car right now.  No, I’m not driving as I write.  I just woke up in Kansas.   The highway is a few hundred feet away.  I’m parked behind a little mound of dirt in this open partially paved field near a fenced plot of farming land with a farmhouse in the distance.  I am passing through the prairie on the way home to New York after a year of California.

I woke up with the steering wheel in front of my face for the third straight day.  I save money this way.   

Besides, the government mostly isn’t running, or something like that, so they don’t want to run the national parks, which really only entails putting a guy at the gate and taking money for entry fees.

Luckily, I have been able to explore new beautiful places in America.

I began at Pyramid Lake in Nevada.  It is the first large lake in a desert that I have ever been fortunate enough to see.  I drove there from San Francisco and Oakland my first free day and night, having left work the day before.  I paid a small fee to the Paiute Indian Tribe to camp on the western shore of this enormous sky blue lake surrounded by bare rock mountains and desert for a hundred miles.

I arrived around one in the morning, with the wind in full force as I set up my tent beneath the brightest starriest sky I’d ever seen.  I know I say that a lot about different places.  This must mean things have been going well.

In this beautiful body of water there is a large rock shaped like a pyramid emerging from the waves.  That is why they call it Pyramid Lake.  It is far in the distance, but still visible.

I spent one day at this amazing place.  I took a shower and did laundry, and met an old woman named Camille who is from Texas originally and Nevada currently.  She and her husband gave me directions for the best way through Las Vegas to Flagstaff, the journey I had planned for Sunday.  I don’t think I followed their directions, but she was a good person to talk to anyway.  She said she had been married since she was 21, and that was considered late back then.  Now she and her husband live an hour away from this place, and her son has been living in Japan for 8 years.  Hokkaido.  He got married to a “nice” girl, according to her, but they haven’t visited yet.

I called a friend in Flagstaff to tell him when I could expect to be around his way, as he had just moved there from New York City, and I hadn’t seen him since before I went to Japan and moved to San Francisco.  I left a voice mail because there was no cell phone reception where I was camping.

Then I drove back up to the Willows, a secluded area at the northernmost available slice of paradise on the western edge of the lake.  Beyond that is purely Native American territory, including this place called Wizard Love.  So I settled for the willows, which had a treed-in oasis near a beach filled with wandering untended cows.  After a nap and rearranging my car for the journey to come, I finally took the canoe on the lake, and just before sunset.  Then the stars came out, and I floated in awe amongst the infinite everything, and then went back to my car to warm up because it is very cold in the desert in northwest Nevada during autumn.  I walked around under the stars for brief periods, then decided I had to listen to at least one song on the water under the stars, because I wanted to and I could.  I was in yet another paradise, after all.  I have no home, no job, and no companions in the present, but I have all of those from the past and soon to be, so I should probably enjoy the scenery and the music of the ride as best I can.  I canoed onto the lake and listened to this absolutely beautiful song, an excellent and ecstatic and energetic and intelligent and delicate and powerful piece of music named “Brand New Day.”  It is from the album Move, by Hiromi, as excellent a music master as I have been blessed to enjoy.  I only listened to one song because it was the best new song I had heard since the last time I fully indulged in my favorite experience.  I had done this exercise several times before the previous summer and listened to just about every divine stargazing song I could wish for, but it was very cold, windy, wavy and isolated at the northern end of Pyramid Lake, so I didn’t want to spend a very long time taking serious risks like that.  It was dark after all, and I had to keep track of the shore.  I had a headlamp, life preserver, anchor, reserve paddle and very warm winter coat to help me ensure a good time, but I only listened to the one song, and it was more than I could ask for.  After removing my headphones I became so in tune with the peaceful flow of the lake that I floated much longer than I had planned, slowly paddling beneath the stars, enormous shadowy mountains, small dark forests near the shore and bright lights in the distance.  I thought of many people I knew, and places I had been.  What a wonderful strange world…

I slept beneath the stars and saw the sunrise over the mountains from my purple and black sleeping bag, which had accompanied me on every camping journey the past three years.  I also saw cows a few feet away, which was a new awakening experience.  Then I packed the car, drove in silence on the lake, and paid for another shower.  My friend hadn’t returned my voice mail yet, so all I knew was that I was driving toward northwest Arizona, through the entire state of Nevada from northwest to southeast, nothing but desert and mountains on the way.  A 12 hour journey in total, but I didn’t think they were ready to host me that night, and we might just meet for lunch the next day.  I was sure I could find somewhere to sleep in the vast desert between here and there.

And that’s when the serious long haul driving began.  The desert revealed treasures, as always.  As did my iPod, as always.

Las Vegas entered the show sometime well after dark, which, of course, was the best way to race through.  Soon I was once again under the open starry sky and bare desert spread across the living spin ball.  I found a small dirt parking spot on an empty country road just off the main highway somewhere east of Kingman, Arizona.  My friend would later tell me that they are the methamphetamine capital of America.  Good for them.

Yesterday morning I woke up on another secluded country road just off the highway, this time in northeast New Mexico, just past Santa Fe.  I spent the day driving on almost completely empty highways, with nothing but small brush lining the slightly sloping landscape.  There were a few seemingly out-of-place winding canyon descents at times, but for the most part it was open and flat land.  The route took me through Texas for two hours, and Oklahoma for more than an hour.  I remembered that the Flaming Lips were from Oklahoma, but didn’t realize how quickly I would arrive in Kansas, so I had to switch to “Yoshimi” for five seconds and then “Do You Realize??” just before I entered the new state, which was the most powerful way I’ve entered a new place in my memory.

After a long Flaming Lips set I switched to a playlist, but the cassette adapter stopped working and I realized I needed a CD.  Luckily, Hiromi’s album MOVE was already inside, and it automatically resumed the song “In Between.”  That album kept me very awake as I glided down the highway.  After that, her premier, Another Mind, kept the blood racing until I got to a rest area.

When I pulled back on the highway I realized it had automatically guided me in the opposite direction without a choice, so when I found the next exit and turned back in the right direction, I saw a dirt road immediately in front of me.  So instead of turning left on the highway for some post-midnight driving to who knows where, I found my place right in front of me and drove into this paved field to this peaceful space shaded by trees and shielded by a mini-hill that I suspect was built just for this purpose.

Now I get to drive all day again, listening to whatever music is there and seeing what there is to see, feeling very lucky and temporarily free, and well aware that there is enormous responsibility and intense engaging endeavors in abundance ahead of me.

As Camille at the laundry and everyone else keeps telling me, I’m simply enjoying this opportunity to love the road and the freedom to see that I can be me, wherever and however I feel like I should be.  Because there are many ways to be, and as much as I have remembered that I love being on my own to do what I want to do, I still much prefer it when there are people around to share this view.

Let’s see if I make it to the Bluegrass State today.

Interlude... 

I am in New York State.  I have just entered Adirondack Park.  I just learned that in Iroquois it means “Tree Eater.”  I know that was supposed to be an insult, but who doesn’t consume the tree of life in the service of enjoying it?

All of these trees make me think of the trees I planted at the farms and nurtured to health and growth.  It was my first job.  I sheared the tree to make it beautiful so people would eventually want to take it and appreciate it for Christmas Day, and decorate it their own way, presented as bearing presents on happy joy day.

I have been traveling for four years.  I have seen many new places, and I have returned home, in ultimate vacation style, several times.   But I have yet to make this my home (dragon fly lands).  Or at least to experience it as home since I have traveled and learned and grown in so many ways that continue to this day.

The first year after leaving New York City I experienced living at home as an adult with college and adult city experience with my even more grown up parents, and working manual labor while re-connecting with old friends and learning how to climb Adirondack Mountains to up my sense and appreciation of adventure.  When I walked down that first high peak, I knew I wanted to have an enormous adventurous voyage in India, with mystic mountains and human chaos and circus and beauty abound.  So I did.  But first I learned how to paint houses.  Then I went to India for two months, and Thailand for three weeks.  I decided to continue going instead of teaching and learned Cambodia through direct experience for three weeks, Vietnam for four weeks, Laos for two weeks, China for seven weeks, Egypt for one week, Germany for one week and Ireland for one week.  Then I explored many mountains of the northeast, such as the Green, White, Berkshire and Adirondack Mountains.

The second year I took buses and hitchhiked through the south, staying in strangers’ homes and camping and hiking in the cold, ice and snow.  I saw the Grand Canyon at sunset on Thanksgiving, and lived outside for two weeks in a tent in national parks in Arizona and Utah, mostly with lots of snow surrounding, and often with temperatures as low as 0-10 degrees.  I hitchhiked thirteen rides, and made it to San Francisco from New York in 61 days to catch my plane to Mexico because I heard it in my dad’s favorite song according to his high school yearbook, "The Only Living Boy in New York": “Tom, catch your plane right on time, I know your part will go fine, fly down to Mexico, I’m the only living boy in New York.”  I visited the pyramids in Mexico, and explored the country for ten days, and flew home for Christmas for a snowed in winter to reflect on my year of travel, risk, adventure and poetic pleasure.

The third year I flew to Japan to teach English to people aged 3 to 60.  I began writing every day, usually about a picture, but sometimes about whatever came to mind, like a song, or a person, or an idea or event.  The point is that I wrote more than ever before, and had conversations with human beings more than ever before.  I also got up in front of a room of students for the first time in my life, even if they were little kindergartners and pre-school age toddlers.  I had to be energetic and entertaining.  Then I had to be with adults, which meant I had to be interesting, knowledgeable, attentive, understanding, open-minded, energetic, interested, eager to listen, and prepared to talk when necessary, in whatever capacity.  I also had to live and let live with English speakers from around the world and very different parts of my country (and backgrounds and ages).  Very importantly, I learned to eat many vegetables and cook for myself and others, and to do so consistently on a daily basis, while generally eating less junk food and more healthy food than ever before.

The fourth year, I drove (2334) through the American north and camped in as many national parks as possible in 100 days, seeing every beautiful place in the continental US that I had dreamed of, and having more daring camping and hiking experiences than I’d ever thought possible.  I never thought I would have the opportunity to do it, and I didn’t know if I would ever actually do these things.  I’m sure at some point I never even considered them.  I imagine being a twenty year old, playing video games on a winter’s evening, and what the odds were that I would ever think it would actually be better to be camping outside in the middle of the most conservative state in America hoping to hitchhike a ride to stay with friends of friends in Las Vegas, or hiking alone in grizzly bear territory with nothing but twelve miles of bear country and a pack of bear mace to keep you company, or wandering through the streets of India on your own without knowing anybody or anyone.  Well, however I’ve changed, I also worked a manual labor job full time for harvest, and then had a few months of living in a city of my choice while I did nothing else but create art, practice expressing myself, noticing beauty and poetry, and talking to whoever I happened to be living amongst, with a few brief experiences with old friends.  Then I wrote my first book, and began expressing myself online, openly, creatively, and honestly, on almost a daily basis for months.  Most of the year, now.  I also mapped out my first book, and have more than enough ideas for future books.  On top of that, I taught a class for half a year, this time leading my peers, but from all around the world, in a slightly advanced form of my language, yet whatever I wanted.  I just had to make sure they learned and that everyone had a good time.  I taught them everything I knew that was appropriate to share in such a setting, and much that maybe wasn’t.  I learned much from them too.  I got to live in California for a year, and Sonoma/San Francisco/Berkeley/West Oakland at that.

I just drove through America, from West to East: Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and now New York.  I guess they call that route the “Heartland.”  Earlier today I confirmed a job interview in New York City for next week.  I have several hours and a few hundred miles of Adirondack Mountains and forest in between me and Lake Champlain, my favorite place to be, especially at this time of year.  I haven’t been there alone in seventeen months, since right before I left on my journey.  The car and canoe were with me.  The moon smiled wide.  It has been smiling wide a lot lately.

Here is a note for future you: Don’t worry.  You’re going to make it where you want to make it.  You have your life, your ability to love and connect and excite and be excited by life around you, old and new, and you have many stories, whether you realize it or not, and the ability to tell, live, learn and imagine more as you go in the flow of the universe show.