Go West Young People

I bought On The Road By Jack Kerouac, for a friend last night. Instead of actually giving it to her, I began to read it because it is the original scroll version, unedited and uncut. More authentic. We own 2 other copies of this book, but this one is different...so, maybe she will get it and maybe not. Haven't decided. Anyway, one of the first and most telling passages of run on sentences in the book, describes his problem of forever planning the trek out West and yet never getting around to going on the trip.

Christo, my husband, has always been afforded the opportunity of wonderful family trips all over this country and even into Canada. Riding wild horses, fly fishing in icy rivers, hiking incredible forests, biking over barren landscapes, you get the picture. And Yet, he and his buddy Kip, planned the Great VW Bus Adventure, and never got to go.

Call me the Yoko Ono of their teenage years, but somehow I weaseled my way into the plan and pushed the best friend out.

He bought that 1970 VW Bus, at age 15 (and with his own money), for the purpose of escaping into the great wide open; just two guys, 100 pounds of rice and a lot of Holden Caulfield angst. The boys planned and tinkered, and dreamt and struggled through the rigmarole of high school drama. And then, like a sudden snow in September, I came into view. The bag of rice and I were at war for a spot on that bus. I would not be missing the bus...the rice had to go and just like that, I was co-captain of the trip. Kip moved to the back of the bus and eventually he was altogether out.

Poor Kip. Somehow lost in the shuffle of our teenage romance, he moved on. Don't feel too bad for him though. He did go north and jumped on a different kind of bus. The kind that has educational classes through the logging fields. He became an intense activist and still is one of the most environmentally conscious people I know. He married a beautiful woman who is brilliant and witty and surely made for him. And of course, he went West and happens to live on the opposite of the country now in Bellingham, Washington. So, he actually gets the last laugh, you see. While he is experiencing the thrill of having lived the dream, we are still planning ours.

While we are still trying to get a bus ready, (it is in pieces in our garage) we know our day will come. We are no longer at liberty to pack 100 pounds of food, because now we must pack 100 pounds of kids. And yet, we love this crazy life and we long for our crazy trip and all of the unexpected surprises. Perhaps our trip out West will be to visit Kip and Brooke and we shall laugh as we eat their wonderful vegan victuals served over rice.

Absolutely covered in...

Volkswagens.

I know you were thinking that I would say wildflowers so breathtaking that I wanted to pretend I was Maria and sing "the hills are alive" etc. You may have even thought I was going to fill in that abysmal blank with the word "books" because I read them so much. Possibly even "fabric" because I have entirely too much and it is beautiful to behold.

But that is just not the case. We were creeping down the country road and happened upon an old VW mechanics shop that looked small and had a handful of clunkers out front. My adventurous husband then says to me, "you see that little dirt road between this shop and that trailer? Well let's just see what is back there." So we take his truck down that road and see a crumbling yet very tall privacy fence that should be fired because he was failing in his attempt to keep anything private.

Before we could see much of anything but vies, a very unfriendly scowling teenager on a 4-wheeler rolled up to us at the opening of the fence and stared us down. So we attempt the friendly "hello" at which he keeps the stoic scowl firmly planted on his young face. I mean, it's not like we live in a free country or anything. This road, albeit dirt, was not private and had no posted notice. Also, what if we were the inhabitants of that dilapidated trailer next door? He would not know if we had just acquired it by some personal misfortune. So, we ignore the rude teenager and we look over that fence and that is when we first saw what true hoarding looks like.

I gasped in joy and also is sickness that someone could actually be such a VW glutton. It was almost like I was enraged at the selfishness of one person to harbour all of these beautiful bugs and buses and ghias and square backs and fastbacks. But then I was compassionate at the thought of the illness that this collector has.

I can understand in some small scale way the hold that these cars can have over someone- my husband is 27 and has owned a total of 5 in the 10 years he could even drive. We just acquired a new one on Saturday. I would say that he has a small addiction to buses. And so you can see why this would be a truly incredible sight to behold. I will go back and take pictures for your enjoyment ( and mine).

The Country Drive

For two people deeply in love, anytime spent together is satisfying and yet also painful. Painful? Yes. We know that this time together is temporary and so we attempt to forget time altogether and sink fully into the moment. This of course is impossible because the sun eventually goes down, bodies need to be nourished and fatigue lingers closely behind us. This human form is not eternal and so we must take "time" to enjoy each other inside of this Earthly clockwork.

If you ask me how I do this, I would tell you that some conditions for this enjoyment are as follows: a sunny or partly overcast day, a car or truck but preferably an old VW bus, music by ipod, radio, tape, etc., windows that roll down, and my husband. In the sweet youth of our love, we also threw in a bag of Baked Lays and a bottle of Fruitopia. Those last condition no longer apply because Fruitopia no longer exists and we are older now and cannot eat an entire bag of chips without suffering for it later. (We replaced the chips with Hot boiled peanuts(a southern classic) and the occasional Slurpee or Gatorade.)

T. S. Eliot wrote "April is the cruelest month" and I shall add to that: "Sunday is the cruelest day". I attend church with my family, contemplate the sacrifice made on my behalf, share in the communion with brothers and sisters and sing the hymns with joy and thankfulness. This is a blessing and so it would seem that Sunday is the most Glorious of days. But that is just not the reality of it for me.

I bustle through my week with homeschooling, schedules, soccer, gymnastics, meetings, church studies, parties etc...By the time Friday evening comes, I am exhausted, and I want my husband back from work. His job is stressful and not always fulfilling. We have dreams and we have plans and they are not a part of of our daily life. So on the weekend we detox from our weekly drugs that keep us plugged in and engaged in the present. We sleep later, we read deeply, we eat at random times, we get dirty, we nap longer and we listen to a lot of music in the background.

Come Sunday, I want to fellowship with other people not on our planet. So when we go to church, we do just that. Then we pack ourselves back into our van and go home. I feel sick the whole way. I hate that the hamster wheel will start again in less than 24 hours.

So, I propose a country drive. What you love to do does not have to change just because you have 4 kids bouncing around in the backseat. We are all cowboys at heart. We want to explore and find a treasure like Cortes and chocolate. I feel that this desire is truly Human. God said "Go and take dominion" and while it may be a bit out of context here, I do not think He meant to stay just outside the Garden gate and set up camp for all time.

So, we set off, GPS ready, to get lost in the country. And a Discovery was made and what we found was something overwhelming. Not in an incredible mountain view way, or a munchkin land kind of thing. But for my husband it was like God saying to us, I love you, I know you and I know what you love and desire. This may sound silly, but what we found was breathtaking in a rusty, dilapidated sort of way. We discovered 2 (maybe more) acres of land absolutely covered in-------.

Why did you name it that?

photo by ardenstreet

So, this morning as we sipped tea with stevia and ate pitas stuffed with kalmatas, my husband told me that perhaps I need to explain my blog's name.

Is that like naming a baby something obscure and then feeling like you MUST justify it by defining it? For example, my son's name is Summit and in the past, after receiving strange looks and "come again" a million times, I would explain away the reason we chose his name and the love story behind it, but then who really cares about my love story except for myself and the man I love.

Suffice it so say, I eventually stopped giving in to the disconcerting stares and obviously disapproving murmurs about how "interesting" my child's name is. I no longer let them in on the reason we named him Summit because it is strangely akin to "throwing pearls before swine" in my book.

On another note, I thought it quite satisfying and humorous, that the very person who requested that I explain my blog's name is my husband. I cannot tell you how many high school afternoons we drove around in Sunnie, his 1970 Volkswagen Bus, with the windows down, music blaring, red and blond curls flying around until they were in dreadlocks. When we were forced to slow down due to red lights, the engine would quiet down and we could actually hear each other talking. My most common point of discussion would go like this " why is this band named------"?

(You fill in the blank because you know that band names are typically ridiculous and if they do not seem this way to you then you are either: A.) in a band with a funky name or B.) you actually read all of the books and have seen all of the movies that refer to these random titles, so YOU GET IT. ) My high school sweetheart and now husband would reply to this seemingly juvenile question with " why do these bands need to explain themselves to you? Why do you feel the need to have to understand the band name? It is poetic, it is artistic etc..." He was sooo "deep" (don't you love that word) and he still is. He is also a musician and has been in a band with a random name so he is one of those that "GETS IT."

I still catch myself every now and then trying to figure out the band names and attempting to make sense of obscure lyrics in an effort to better understand them.
So, I will explain the name, because it is only fair to people like myself who cannot handle not knowing "why." But not right now. You have to wait. And no this is not a giveaway blog- but it could be when my 1800 sq ft organic garden starts producing.