I would have this unpretentious book taken only for what it is — the wayside notes of a happy vagabondizing. It was written in hurried moments by the coal-oil lamps of country hotels, the tallow dips of section-house or ranch, the smoky pine- knots of the cowboy's or the hunter's cabin, the crackling fogon of a Mexican adobe, or the snapping greasewood of my lonely campfire upon the plains; and from that vagrant body and spirit I have not tried to over-civilize it. A prim chronicle of such a trip would be no chronicle at all. Nor have I desired to make it either an atlas or an encyclo- paedia of the country. Economic and geographic essays do not belong within its scope. It is merely a truthful record of some of the experiences and impressions of a walk across the continent — the diary of a man who got outside the fences of civil- ization and was glad of it. It is the simple story of joy on legs. - Charles Fletcher Lummis "A Tramp Across the Continent"A year of dreaming, and many months of auto repair and planning, and when the moment arrives, all you really do is get in the car and go. For weeks before we left, I tried to project myself into that moment of departure, to imagine how setting out to cross the entire country might feel different from setting out for a day's drive. Oh and what would we find as we traveled through Deepest South and across the great American West these days? (Walking the US is most assuredly out of the question). Would we cling to diner stools over steaming bowls of soup? Stumble at dawn into a mess of Vietnamese parking lot fruit vendors? Sit with strangers around crackling mesquite fires? Would we encounter some southwestern equivalent of our own island people- some small town hooligans with big hearts and a love of wild places and reckless driving? Would we turn off the highway at no particular place, chancing defeat, only to come upon a ragged cliff drop overlooking half-abandoned arcades? Whatever you do, they said in New England, just don't go through Texas.
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| plains of West Texas |
This past summer, just once and only once I had a total meltdown at a party. The outpouring of joy that accompanies a special occasion can feel the most alienating. As the vibrancy of the event intensifies, I go translucent AND opaque, I fade and fade into some ghostly measure of a human, some paltry spirit peering through the veil. It is just that we emerge into the world, each one this delicate pea shoot of a being, green and curling and unfurling our tiny tendril fingers and clinging to whatever is nearest. We make our way along a narrow fence and we grow and our sense of wonder grows and what we feel is rejection and insecurity, but we also feel invincible and shiny. We feel, we feel, we feel the magic rending the earth apart, it quietly hums beneath our feet. Now, at the party, I say between sobs, to this island boy I love, what exactly has this life done to me? No longer tendrils and green shoots, I am some hardened woody stalk of a thing, and to feel anything at all is oh so difficult and it should not be thus.
And so on to drinking and smoking and eventually, I find in the creases of the night and the loud embrace of fireworks a piece of that bright shiny joy I was searching for.
Across the country is where I look for the unexpected once more.
Leaving Maine in mid-to-late October, and traveling down along the Appalachians, it takes almost a week to get anywhere warm. In Tennessee, we find enough afternoon left after arriving at a state park that we can wander freely through the woods around the manmade lake. Gusts of wind shake the golden oaks, releasing their many acorns all around us. We cook dinner on our camp stove amidst the percussive din of falling acorns. We wash our dishes at the nearby spigot as they rain down, and throughout the night we sleep and awaken and sleep again, in rapt to the acorns' plinking plunking dry and scattered storm.
In the desert near the Rio Grande the mountains and mesas stretch out into a lunar forever and the animals make themselves scarce. This is the territory of jackrabbits and javelina, of mountain lions and black bears. If only the people were easier to escape. As we wind our way higher up, the afternoon is creeping past us on rocky surfaces and I feel a warm glow within: a wish for golden eyes like those of a cat. I wish to stalk these mesas and slink away from all sight. We are getting hungry. As we descend the mountain trail where we've been lounging on rocks watching western jays, we come around a bend in the path. In the clearing beside us there's a tarantula on the move. It is around the size of my very own hand. Truly, it looks like it's just crawled out of the "Labyrinth" rather than an actual rock. It feels its way along the terrain between rocks and scrub brush. We know that these tarantulas are nothing but normal here, but we are transfixed.
In the bayou a tiny alligator watches us eating our shrimp etouffée at a swampside picnic table. On a narrow boardwalk we follow armadillos as they snuffle through the underbrush and squint their piglet eyes at us. Walking along the levees at night, the secret industrial shipping world is laid bare for all those who find themselves this close to the banks of the Mississippi, where the drawbridge operator parks his pimped out ride next to the tower and blasts his horn all night to friends riding riverboats. The Mississippi's still full of river rats and vagabonds and weary captains.
Who are the vagabonds on the road in the autumn of 2013? There's the truckers of course, making solo cups of coffee in their 18 wheel apartments, parked alongside the ubiquitous RV couples and the occasional RV family. Rock climbing enthusiasts congregate in Utah. High school seniors on a big class trip announce their destinations in a scrawl of soap van lettering. In Burlington, VT and Asheville, NC, downtown swims with fresh college faces and street performers taking a break between festival pilgrimages: a mountain of people on the move. In the desert we pass a cyclist with nothing but a look of determination and an elfin hat. As we get deeper into the driest and hottest places, we find them at intervals, the vagabonds on bicycle and motorcycle and then even on foot. Is theirs a "simple story of joy on legs"? They are encumbered by myriad saddlebags and a profusion of dreadlocks or facial hair. We see one couple with their dog. They are dusty and frowning in flowing clothes, and walking at least a half a mile apart.
In the Grand Canyon our fireside chatter is smothered by live Christian grunge rock. At the very same campsite we are met by a lone Chinese traveler who has grown fleet and fearless in his year of upscale vagabondizing across the U.S. The vagabonds of today do sometimes drive S.U.V.s but more often they live in hippie vans and station wagons full of cardboard. They live hidden in the rushes just across the border from Mexico, in campers on blocks by the beach, in Greyhound stations, on SoCal boulevards and in Golden Gate Park. The vagabonds of today are gutterpunks. They are young and barefoot and uniformly dirty. They have dogs with handkerchiefs and guitars and shrieking fits of laughter. They live in Tompkins Square Park and in the French Quarter and you know what, fuck you! anywhere else they feel like it.
Our roadtrip life is contained within a late 90's model 2-door Japanese mobile micro-dwelling.
To eat, to sleep, to get at a sweater, all these basics require stopping and removing every single item packed tightly inside the car, to a cluttered heap beside it. Navigating is a production, preparing meals, setting up and breaking down camp at every stop: tedious and wearisome. The untouched places, the enchanted miles and the wild roadside friendships: always just out of reach. The fact is that almost every acre of these American territories is in some way monitored, designated, fenced in. You've got to know someone to really get somewhere. And yet...
We find ourselves hopelessly caught up in the romance of the road. We find that we don't care to arrive, that we don't want to stop. And yet... Even in the vastness of this nation you can eventually run out of road. Charles Lummis, a writer and adventurer, walked from Cincinnati to Los Angeles in 1892 just for the hell of it- but also because there was a newspaper job awaiting him. We took to the road because it is a lovely thing to do, but also because I have a job of sorts waiting for me here. All those desert stretches have been the prefect acclimation to studying and working at a dry garden with cacti and their kind, which is what I came to the Bay Area to do this winter. Springtime will find me tearing myself away from the public garden which I already adore and venturing back out across the many miles between the Pacific Ocean and Maine. In the meantime, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley are most perfect tramping grounds ;)
It is the beauty and spirit of the land that make it worthwhile, but really much more than that, it is the people. Thank you, beauties!!
And so on to drinking and smoking and eventually, I find in the creases of the night and the loud embrace of fireworks a piece of that bright shiny joy I was searching for.
Across the country is where I look for the unexpected once more.
In the desert near the Rio Grande the mountains and mesas stretch out into a lunar forever and the animals make themselves scarce. This is the territory of jackrabbits and javelina, of mountain lions and black bears. If only the people were easier to escape. As we wind our way higher up, the afternoon is creeping past us on rocky surfaces and I feel a warm glow within: a wish for golden eyes like those of a cat. I wish to stalk these mesas and slink away from all sight. We are getting hungry. As we descend the mountain trail where we've been lounging on rocks watching western jays, we come around a bend in the path. In the clearing beside us there's a tarantula on the move. It is around the size of my very own hand. Truly, it looks like it's just crawled out of the "Labyrinth" rather than an actual rock. It feels its way along the terrain between rocks and scrub brush. We know that these tarantulas are nothing but normal here, but we are transfixed.
In the bayou a tiny alligator watches us eating our shrimp etouffée at a swampside picnic table. On a narrow boardwalk we follow armadillos as they snuffle through the underbrush and squint their piglet eyes at us. Walking along the levees at night, the secret industrial shipping world is laid bare for all those who find themselves this close to the banks of the Mississippi, where the drawbridge operator parks his pimped out ride next to the tower and blasts his horn all night to friends riding riverboats. The Mississippi's still full of river rats and vagabonds and weary captains.
Who are the vagabonds on the road in the autumn of 2013? There's the truckers of course, making solo cups of coffee in their 18 wheel apartments, parked alongside the ubiquitous RV couples and the occasional RV family. Rock climbing enthusiasts congregate in Utah. High school seniors on a big class trip announce their destinations in a scrawl of soap van lettering. In Burlington, VT and Asheville, NC, downtown swims with fresh college faces and street performers taking a break between festival pilgrimages: a mountain of people on the move. In the desert we pass a cyclist with nothing but a look of determination and an elfin hat. As we get deeper into the driest and hottest places, we find them at intervals, the vagabonds on bicycle and motorcycle and then even on foot. Is theirs a "simple story of joy on legs"? They are encumbered by myriad saddlebags and a profusion of dreadlocks or facial hair. We see one couple with their dog. They are dusty and frowning in flowing clothes, and walking at least a half a mile apart.
In the Grand Canyon our fireside chatter is smothered by live Christian grunge rock. At the very same campsite we are met by a lone Chinese traveler who has grown fleet and fearless in his year of upscale vagabondizing across the U.S. The vagabonds of today do sometimes drive S.U.V.s but more often they live in hippie vans and station wagons full of cardboard. They live hidden in the rushes just across the border from Mexico, in campers on blocks by the beach, in Greyhound stations, on SoCal boulevards and in Golden Gate Park. The vagabonds of today are gutterpunks. They are young and barefoot and uniformly dirty. They have dogs with handkerchiefs and guitars and shrieking fits of laughter. They live in Tompkins Square Park and in the French Quarter and you know what, fuck you! anywhere else they feel like it.
Our roadtrip life is contained within a late 90's model 2-door Japanese mobile micro-dwelling.
 |
| island boy & the mobile micro-dwelling in the Sonoran desert |
To eat, to sleep, to get at a sweater, all these basics require stopping and removing every single item packed tightly inside the car, to a cluttered heap beside it. Navigating is a production, preparing meals, setting up and breaking down camp at every stop: tedious and wearisome. The untouched places, the enchanted miles and the wild roadside friendships: always just out of reach. The fact is that almost every acre of these American territories is in some way monitored, designated, fenced in. You've got to know someone to really get somewhere. And yet...
We find ourselves hopelessly caught up in the romance of the road. We find that we don't care to arrive, that we don't want to stop. And yet... Even in the vastness of this nation you can eventually run out of road. Charles Lummis, a writer and adventurer, walked from Cincinnati to Los Angeles in 1892 just for the hell of it- but also because there was a newspaper job awaiting him. We took to the road because it is a lovely thing to do, but also because I have a job of sorts waiting for me here. All those desert stretches have been the prefect acclimation to studying and working at a dry garden with cacti and their kind, which is what I came to the Bay Area to do this winter. Springtime will find me tearing myself away from the public garden which I already adore and venturing back out across the many miles between the Pacific Ocean and Maine. In the meantime, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley are most perfect tramping grounds ;)
And a superbig shout out to the newest little person in our big and most kickass group of friends:
Dean!! Who was not yet born when we came through, but is now out and about and living it up.
