I love road trips!

I love road trips.  Before I had meditation, I had road trips. Buckling up, putting on music and heading out on the road is its own kind of adventure.  There is a shedding of layers. There is control and a responsibility that one does not experience as a passenger on a plane, a train or a bus. I am the master of my destiny, or at least my destination. 

The black asphalt and white lines, the blue sky and the dots of color of the other cars and billboards array themselves like an impressionistic painting and my mind begins to loosen.  The stream of consciousness begins to flow and I feel free.  

Sometimes I feel such an expansive joy.  It is like I am in motion.  I am. But really in motion connecting with the vastness of the planets and the stars and the ocean tides.  My former nomad, my ancient wandering Jew has found his flight and my restless heart has begun its journey.  I feel connected to it all and I begin to sing with the radio.  Sometimes, I look for radio stations that play music from the 80s, which floods my mind with memories of  High School and the beginnings of college.  I can be as light as a Cyndi Lauper tune or as heavy as Nirvana or pensive as the Indigo Girls.  But I am transported to the past while I am going 70 miles per hour into my future.  

Sometimes a road trip is just sheer adventure, like when I drove from Atlanta to Denver the back way through Shreveport, Dallas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.  I stopped at roadside attractions like an exotic zoo,and at random places the Aloha gym, or the OK Corral Barber Shop, State parks for a mid-drive hike break. I brought along Hashem, an Ugly doll, who after all since Hashem is everywhere managed to be in pictures along the drive even in a llama's mouth.  People and destinations broke up the long drive each becoming its own exciting story.

Then I think of the times when to be on the road touches my heart in such a way that it opens to the longing for that which I lack or a grief of what could have been.  Some of my best road trips have been long and alone.  In that place of being alone, I feel the weight finally sinking so that tears flow.  Leaving college, I was heading to Teach for America in Los Angeles. Finishing my requirements early, I packed up my car and took off without saying good-bye to anyone.  Leaving a semi-closeted life with many a regret, I wanted to shed my life like a snake skin. The Josh of college needed to be retired and allow what might be to manifest. Driving to Los Angeles, over two weeks with a stop to meet my family in Santa Fe, I was excited that I packed quickly and went stealthily onto the road.  Once I hit the highway, I put my Melissa Etheridge cassette tape in and began to sing and then the tears began to flow. With the weight of the compelling need to escape and make a clean break, I cried from Chicago all the way to Saint Louis but once I arrived in St. Louis.  I could breathe.  I treated myself to a good dinner and felt lighter.  Let the adventure begin, I thought.  

Nov. 22nd will be a year since my relationship ended with its shocking revelations.  It is Thanksgiving.  Hmm, what is the universe telling me?  This year has served up a Yom Kippur birthday, a Thanksgiving ending anniversary.  What's in store for me?   Perhaps, this is a year of cleansing, stripping back down to vulnerability, being grateful that something worse may have been averted?  I don't know, but I am starting Friday; I have two weeks and change off and I am going on the rogue again.  What will the road bring me?  I don't know. 

 Destination: New Orleans to volunteer and teach, then to Columbus for Thanksgiving and then your guess is as good as mine.  Care to follow?  Buckle up.