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September 23 - September 30, 2023
If you were a suburban kid like me, you probably grew up in a school system that wants you to go to college and choose a major and go straight into a job and a marriage and a mortgage. It gives you rungs of achievement: a degree, a wife, a house, kids, golf—whatever—and makes you think these things give life meaning. “Collect them all and win!”
But the big fancy adults preach the opposite as well. They say, “fall in line” and then, in the same breath, “think different, take risks!” We are told, “follow your passion” and “stay hungry,” at every commencement and graduation speech. This mixture of school and risk is the holy cocktail of American ideals, and for those rare beacons of exceptional success, it turns their life stories into fables. But for ordinary folks, it is a difficult road to walk. Be sensible, but be wild. Be ordered, but be free. Be responsible, but take risks.
The carefree timelessness of my youth was rattled in my twenties. A kind of panic set in. Time became visible. Each choice I made began to feel more and more final, as if every choice was the death of all the others. Millions of doors were locking behind me as I passed them in the hallway. I felt that age thirty—adulthood—was coming like winter. Am I missing out? Am I making the right decisions? Am I becoming the person I want to be? It often dawns too late that we have only one life, only one path, and the choices we make become the story line of our lives.
As I fell asleep, I thought of all the things I was leaving behind. My comforts. My expensive coffee and craft beer and back-porch hangs with my friends. My routine and my life. I knew it wasn’t forever, but it felt like it.
Humans want few things more than to belong. And nothing unites people like a common enemy.
“Me, too,” I said. “I feel like we’re so lucky to be on this trip and people wish they were doing it and not stuck at a desk job, but damn, the adventure wears off, doesn’t it? I mean, I’m not ready to quit right now or anything. But it feels good to admit it isn’t one long string of euphoria.”
Maybe you’d think it was inspiring to hear that kind of freedom. It was terrifying. He had wrecked several families, and left daughters that wanted to strangle him. Ex-wives spoke of him like a hurricane they’d lived through. This was life? Quitting the fight and accepting yourself, flaws and all? I don’t want to accept my flaws.
“I think you’re really just a kind guy, trapped in a tradition,” he continued. “You’re gay and you’re out and free but you were raised a certain way and you won’t let go of it. You don’t want to spin through space without a tether. I remember when I was a Jesus freak, I was preaching from park benches and screaming the Gospel. Salvation of souls was an emergency. I don’t see that in your eyes. I see a guy who likes the idea of God, of love, of defending a faith system that is the norm and the majority, but pretends it’s a victim and the underdog. If you really thought about it all, you would
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I always thought I didn’t need comfort, but the trip had taught me that that’s something comfortable people say.
And finally, I wanted to get back on the road, away from the beach and the pool and all the jocks on vacation. I wanted to feel special again, intriguing and adventurous on my bicycle, not like I felt here, invisible.
Once the room was full, piled eight feet high with gold from wall to wall, Atahualpa asked for his release. He was denied. Instead, the Spaniards tied Atahualpa to a chair. The priest offered him the chance to repent of his sins and accept Christ. Atahualpa agreed. He asked to be baptized. The priest baptized him. He denounced his belief in the sun god and repented of his sins and accepted the Jesus that had led his enemies to victory. The priest rechristened him Francisco, Pizarro’s middle name. Then, acting quickly for fear Atahualpa would change his mind, they strangled him to death.
More than that, I needed it to reveal my questions to me, then answer them. What a burden to put on travel, which in itself is ignorant and indifferent. It becomes so hard to just enjoy the thing as it happens. We make the journey about arrival, not travel. We are so goal focused.
When we arrive at the goal, we think, then we will be happy. When we finally get there, we can celebrate and have fun. When I get that job, I’ll be fulfilled then. When I get married, I will be happy. The Eden we pine for is not under our own feet or bike tires, but over the next mountain.
