I went hitchhiking a few years back. No destination in mind, no timeframe, no responsibilities. I just left and didn’t come back.
And while it was good for me, and I think of that time affectionately now, it was also an extremely difficult time. There were many times that I would walk endlessly, for days, and I went without food for just as long.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t find a place to eat. There were any number of soup kitchens and shelters I could have stopped at; but I never really felt like I was needy enough. I had chosen this particular path, and there were people there that really needed that help. I couldn’t justify using a service designed for people that couldn’t avoid their predicament.
Not to say I didn’t eat at these places, but it was usually only after going hungry for three or four days.
But that’s besides the point.
I recently went through the old duffel bag that travelled with me during those times, and in it, a bunch of wrinkled, worn, dirty, rain soaked pages of writing. Each page smelled distinctly like the road and country. It was like each one was a snapshot of my time spent sleeping under bridges and huddled beneath gnarled tree branches in the woods. A few had spots of blood, and explanations for how it got there.
In the time I spent out on the road, I never had money except for what I earned playing acoustic guitar on street corners and in markets. I made it as far East as Pennsylvania, and as far south as Mexico and edging toward part of Central America.
I have scribbled pages with words that are jumpy and jumbled. Each page, a testament to my ride on crowded Mexican buses, big rigs, and family station wagons on their way to nowhere; and me, disorganized on alcohol and exhaustion, scribbling frantically away in old notebooks.
There are ripped pages and little halfnotes that make no sense and, unfortunately, never will. I’ve read through poems and diary entries that speak of watching the sun rise while at the grand canyon, and the sunset on lakes that I never even knew the name of then, nor now.
And with all that being said, and all the the things I saw, and all the things I did, I still feel like some of that time was wasted. Not all of it, to be sure, but some of it.
The reason being… it wasn’t shared with anyone. Admittedly, part of the reason I left was because I was finally on my own and I wanted to be my own person. I wanted to find out who I was and figure out where I was going. But now I realize that all I have are memories and all of the time I spent on the road was by myself. Nobody I know can relate to it.
Nobody can say, “Oh yeah! I remember when we…” and relate the story back to me. It is all confined to my failing memory; it’s fading faster and faster each day. I’ve forgotten a good number of the names and faces of the people I met while jumping in to their cars and talking with them for hours in the waning sunlight down long deserted highways.
I’ve forgotten many of the nights I spent walking down desert highways, listening to coyotes and the wind whistling through rocks and hills in the distance. It was at those times that I’d talk to the sky or to my mom and ask questions that were never answered.
I kind of feel like I should have been more responsible in retaining all these memories. I can’t help but almost mourn the loss of some of them.
I guess this is only the start of growing old.