When I started this blog I said it would include fun travel sites, music but also where my heart is on this journey. This is one of those. I’m in the “all by myself” time now, until I get to Denver for my niece’s wedding. I’m getting used to being by myself, and it makes the little interactions I have with people in my day all the more meaningful. I stopped at a restaurant that was just opening and another couple was just walking in. We were the only ones there. I asked them if they wanted to dine together or if they wanted company. They said to feel free, so we had a delightful meal together. I made some one-night-only friends at a couple campgrounds. It helps me feel like I can connect and be my social self, which when I’m alone I’m just with my thoughts.
And I’ve been doing plenty of thinking. Maybe it’s being out west where the past is very much present in the town names, the historical markers, the museums, but what I’ve really been struck by is the suffering. The battles, the massacres, the chasms between cultures. The hardships of the jobs and struggling to survive. The settlers and miners who went looking for gold and violating the Indian treaties. The tribes who were pushed into ever smaller reservations. And then I think about the suffering happening now in so many places in the world; Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Thailand and Cambodia. And I’m just in my van sightseeing. I’m not an activist people enroller like Pete Seeger. I’m not getting into Good Trouble like John Lewis suggested we do till we die. I’m not even donating very much. I feel helpless with international conflicts and a growing Fascist government at home. I’ve never felt it productive to post these outrages on FB, and anyone who follows the news knows it already anyway.
And, I’m no longer teaching, being a husband, raising a family or saving for retirement. I’m IN retirement. I don’t even know what kind of music to make.
So I’m aimless, unmoored, aloft and alone. I miss the gentle camaraderie with Sharon, the little arguments that don’t mean anything, just her pure company.
I’ve also been thinking about my own mortality. One of the consequences of being a caregiver during Sharon’s cancer journey is that I’m suspicious of every little discomfort in my gut. So many friends I’ve visited on this trip are dealing with friends or family who are dying.
I always thought of the ocean as the best example of timelessness, but when Sharon and I went to the Grand Canyon and I saw the sediment layers going back millions, no, billions of years I realized rocks teach the same lesson as the ocean. We are all a future sediment layer. (May I suggest the “Plasticene”?)
I sat on a 50 million year old rock today at Devil’s Tower and thought about Time. I remembered an experience I had with friends Ellen and Mark in Sicily visiting a 2,000 year old temple. I suddenly saw the people moving in ultra-fast motion, alive then gone, hundreds of generations visiting the site while the temple sat perfectly still, maybe losing a pedestal here and there.
Where am I going with all this? There always has and always will be unimaginable suffering, from nations at war to losing a loved one. I couldn’t stop the cancer and I can’t bring peace to the Mideast. But I can declare peace in my heart and with those I love. We will all be gone like the people at the temple, but we can love each other the best we can while we’re here.
I want to retract what I said about Mt Rushmore being the ultimate vandalism of a sacred site. After visiting, seeing the accomplishment, learning about the construction, hearing from Native voices that opposed it but now see it as something that belongs to everyone, it really is quite impressive. And the ongoing carving of the Crazy Horse Monument a few miles away is amazing. More details in the next post.
I feel like I should end with some more board signs:
United Hairlines - hair regrowth company
Shed Happens - same company, but trying too hard
“I’ve Got the Best Retirement Plan” - God
Travel at Your Own Risk if You Don’t Know Jesus
Sweet Crude - gas station