"We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there."
- Pascal Mercier
- Pascal Mercier
Only once since the inception of this blog have I published the writings of someone else, a "guest blog". However, as I read the words of my friend Kevin Blankenship and his story of a 10-day cross country road trip with his dad, I knew immediately that I wanted to share his words. I don't know any of the back story other than what was written in two different Facebook postings made before and then after the trip, but we all know similar stories. Kevin has captured the essence of both adventure and family. We speak the same language. Many of us do, but rarely do we capture in just a few words what Kevin has. The road has a healing quality and this story is evidence of it. Enjoy.
Ride Safe, and with Purpose.
SMB
A Forward.......
Way Back Wednesday?
Right about 40 years ago today mom, dad, and I flew home from Honolulu, HI and settled into McKenzie, TN. I guess that was our first "road trip" and we took quite a few more over the years until I was old enough to drive and started staying home, working, and skipping the summer trips.
Tomorrow me and the dude below, 40 years later, are starting a 20+ state, 6,000+ mile, two to three week road trip out west. I doubt we've been in a car together for more than an hour since '92ish and we went to Colorado. He's been packed for three or four days. I haven't even started packing yet. There's an "itinerary" of sorts. He's got a lot of places he wants to see and there's a few on there that I haven't been to yet like Devil's Tower, (Which I really regretted skipping my last road trip out west.), Teddy Roosevelt National Park, and a couple of others. For the most part it's "whatever" and "nowhere to go but everywhere."
Most I have been to once or twice like the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Glacier, Yellowstone, The Tetons, Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon, etc. But I haven't been with him. I plan to see some old friends, who I never know whether or not I'll see again, because when you've spent 20 years being a vagabond and rambling the country you make friends that you sometimes never see again. And I plan on stopping by to commune with the ghost of Hemingway in Ketchum, ID. It's been awhile since he and I have had a heart to heart.
I'm looking forward to this trip. I'm excited and it takes a lot to get me excited these days. I'm lucky and blessed to still have both of my parents and to have a relationship with them that means we can spend three weeks in a car together. I doubt there is anyone else I know that I could spend three weeks in a car with and not worry about one of us catching a flight home halfway through. I doubt either of us will ever be the same after this trip. You spend that much time around me, without a chance for escape, and I'm going to tell you some things you haven't heard before. It's just the way I work.
The photo albums full of his pictures from all over the world are a big part of why I have done things the way I have.
Like old Jack Kerouac said, “There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”
I couldn't write a better life.
P.S. Apparently I was a fan of pulling hair early in life. ;)
I'm glad some things haven't changed. It's worked out for me like everything else has.
A postlude....
I could list a bunch of numbers about how many miles, states, National Parks, Pterodactyls seen, Ibuprofen taken, etc... but I’m going to try to keep this short. That’s not easy for me. I like details.
I understand that I am very lucky to have both of my parents around still. I know I’m blessed to have the relationship that I do with my folks. A lot of my friends, Facebook or otherwise, aren’t as lucky. I know that I’m lucky to have lived in a way that allows me to just pick up and take off for 10 days on a cross country trip by car. I’m lucky to have friends all over the country, and world, that will give me a place to spend the night or longer. I get it, I’m lucky, and I’m blessed. I’m also lucky that most of the people that I have shared parts of my life with still talk to me and consider me a friend. People “go away” for various reasons and the vast majority of mine haven’t. I appreciate the ones that stayed, the ones that tell me they love me, smile when they see me, take their own time to spend time with me. It reminds me, that regardless of anything else, I must have done a few things right over the past 40 years.
My dad – We didn’t really get along all that well the first 20 years of my life. We fought and sometimes we fought hard. We’re too much alike. My mom always told me that and I understood it in some ways, no matter how much I denied it all. We’re both stubborn to a fault and we’re both given to a quiet nature that sometimes gets interrupted by loud bursts of passion. We're also both never wrong even when we disagree. When I left for Houston in 2000 something changed there and it has been changing ever since. I understood him more and I think he started to see more of himself in me than he had recognized previously. He wrote me a letter while I was there, the first and last, and it boiled down to, "I could always come home if I needed to or wanted to come home."
We’ve gotten along, for the most part, much better since then. And it gets better every year. We averaged 14 hours of driving for 9 straight days. We drove 42 hours, Thursday and Friday, and only stopped once for an hour. The rest of the time we caught a nap while the other drove. During that whole 18 state, 6,402 mile drive, we got snippy with each other one time outside of Salt Lake City.
We talked a lot, and as the trip went on, we talked less, but the silence was not uncomfortable. Somewhere in Montana he started saying out loud that he was missing my mom. You spend 41.5 years together, and are never apart for more than a day or two, and you get real used to seeing the other person every day. I let him think and he let me think.
I noticed him softening his stubbornness and always right with quieter discussion. I do the same. We drive the same. We think about how to get somewhere the same. He’s a big, soft, romantic, never meets a stranger, vagabond and so am I. I had no idea how much like him I really am, or at least I had never had it put in my face in living color so much before. We laughed a lot, we laughed at ourselves, and we laughed at each other.
The universe, God the comedian, the mountains, and a soft hearted woman or two have always been there exactly when I needed them to remind me to keep on doing what I’ve been doing. That it’s all worked out. That everything is alright, and it will be, until it ain’t.
So much for short.
One night, I don’t remember which, I was sitting outside of a cheap hotel in Livingston, WY. My belly was full of one of the best burgers I have ever eaten. Dad was inside, the air on full blast, snoring away. I was on the phone with one of the aforementioned reminders, and this happened.
“He just wants you to settle down.”
I thought about it for a moment and said, “I think he just wants me to settle down with someone who won’t expect me to settle down.”
She seemed a little struck by that and I was, too. It just popped into my brain and escaped out of my mouth. There was conversation behind the statement. Conversations with my dad about relationships, love, and getting to a point where you really don’t “need” anybody because you’ve made it just fine by yourself for a long damn time and always will. He wouldn’t trade his last 40 years for my last 20 and I wouldn’t trade mine for his. That being said, it’s really nice to be able to leave when you want, and go wherever you feel like going, and it’s just as nice to have someone soft to come home to when you’re back.
He got to go and I’ve got somewhere soft to visit in a few hours. Who knows how long his or mine will last. I don’t reckon it matters. The end of the story never matters as much as the beginning and middle.
Life is short, people. Its precious. It doesn’t have to be your dad or your mom. It doesn’t have to be your wife or husband. Just go somewhere, see something new, explore. Take someone you love with you. I’ve got a cemetery full of the "no longer here" inside of my head. You better believe that those ghosts of old friends, family, and one too many old lovers rattle the shit out of their chains some nights. I’ve also got a heart full of the same that are still here. I tell them about the ghosts and it keeps the ghosts quiet. They’re never all the way gone as long as you keep them alive.
What I’m saying is this – It’s your story. It’s up to you how you tell it. You’re in charge. Nothing can happen that has the power to take that away from you. You tell it well enough and even death is powerless because the ones you told will keep telling for you.
Y’all be good to each other. Be sweet and tender. Love somebody and allow yourself to be loved. The world is big and life is short. Enjoy all of it you can.
6,402 – 18 – 11 – 1 – 30
-Kevin Blankenship
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