ANEW: On the First Part of the….
For the first part of the journey, I was looking at more than a riverbed, but I do understand what the 1970s-era rock group America’s “Horse with No Name” meant. Driving halfway across the country westward, America comes alive. Even though I was up most of the nights before getting into my car and driving with my little Tote-4 RV toward my initial destination, I was captivated by silence. For miles and miles that stretched ahead, I made sure that I could begin to still the noise of the last 3 years, plus the 31 years that came before it, to understand that I was making a leap into an unknown world.
Some of my classmates from high school and college asked if I was retiring. In my cacophonous mind, I thought, “Do I look like the retiring type?” Perhaps. Some of those same classmates had headed off into the wild blue, capturing a piece of the post-work American Pie. Yet, that is not me. One classmate from college I spoke to on my fourteen-hour ride to see my brother and sister-in-love in Cincinnati had recently retired. I listened closely to him and how he was faring. Although his formal work in the industry that he had weathered was over, I guess that he still had another hill to climb or railroad to run. We spoke for nearly two hours, even though we may not have said more than half a dozen words to each other before. You see, we are starting a men’s group with other members of our class to see what we might discover about ourselves and each other. You might say that I manifested the connection. I certainly welcome being connected to people who have a shared experience as I have had when we were in our most formative years between our late teens and early twenties.
After finishing up the phone call and those two hours with my new-found friend and auditioning for a possible new walk-up song to get me going (I played Gregory Porter’s version of Sting’s song “It’s Probably Me” at the Polar Music Prize about twenty-five times), I went into that driving fugue state of hypnotic tension. On one road I passed either in Western New York or just over the line in Pennsylvania, I thought I spied a campsite with a huge Paul Bunyan-like character, but not Paul and without Babe the Blue Ox. It made me think of the movie “Fargo” and my own allegory of a new life I was beginning to build.
Why ANEW, you ask? Because deep down, we are always beginning, every one of us. Something that starts usually means something or some things must come to an end. A friend told me that in parts of South America, when the local folks know they don’t want to see you again, they say, “Adios!” If they want to see you again, they use “Ciao!” Starting ANEW can be using “Adios!” and “Ciao!” Perhaps that means we have no idea where our travels might lead and if they may lead us back from whence we came.
ANEW is about the road ahead. It’s no longer just a “journey,” which I understand now is one of the most overused words in the last five years: weight loss journey, college journey, Olympic journey, pregnancy journey, pub crawl journey, etc. You get the picture. So, maybe it is time to retire that word for a bit. Thanks, America (the supergroup and not the country of the same name), for going on a journey with a horse with no name.
What I will write in these pages is not about pretty pictures taken at stops along the way from the RV. Or, about family pictures and remembrances. But I do hope that you might forward these dispatches, this blog to a friend or two if you like it, especially if they inspire you to chart your own journ…, errr…, a new beginning.
What I have to offer is to be present and honest with you in the writing and telling of these tales. Remember to tell the Truth. Do no harm, but when you do, own it. Apologize in a real way by saying not only, “I’m sorry, but I will do better the next time.” That’s a good start, don’t you think?
Curated Listening:
I am loving Gregory Porter. His cover of Sting’s “It’s Probably Me,” is the song that you’ve been waiting for. If you didn’t tune in to it above, listen to it HERE.
