An excerpt from my travel journal from the Trip Out West. I slightly modified it for an assignment for a class.
America is a big country, with a lot of strange things just waiting to be found. I discovered this myself last summer during the final leg of a massive road trip across the American West. Three friends and I were travelling through northern Texas along Route 66, and whenever we saw something that caught our attention, we would pull over and fully immerse ourselves in the strange and uniquely American culture lying on either side of the highway – time willing, of course. The entire trip had been completely loose and disorganized, with a basic skeletal structure to follow, which allowed us a lot of freedom to improvise along the way. Driving into Amarillo, Texas, I had a nagging feeling in the back of my head, like there was a great opportunity that we were passing by. After racking my brain unsuccessfully for some time, it finally hit me – the Cadillac Ranch!
I had heard of the Cadillac Ranch before, a strange public art installation composed of ten old Cadillacs in a line buried nose-first into the ground, perhaps the closest thing America’s got to a Stonehenge of our own. Surrounding the ranch is a fence that is never locked, inviting people to view and even graffiti the cars. Maybe it was its clever and ironic celebration of our culture’s fascination with roadside attractions and the cars that we use to visit them. Maybe it was its quirky and tacky charm. Or maybe it was the fact that it was the only interesting thing on the stretch of road for miles in either direction. Whatever it was, I knew that we had to see it. It was exactly the type of thing we were looking for, and after all, it was no more than five miles away.
So we barreled down the old decommissioned Route 66, blowing past the cars on the interstate running alongside us, and a few miles down the road we came to the ranch in the middle of a cow pasture. Right as we showed up, as if on a schedule, more cars were pulling off to the side of the road to take a look. We climbed out of the car groggy, haggard, and rough looking from the drive and joined the processional march toward the cars. There were all kinds of people in the line: an older couple, a dozen Boy Scouts, a white trash family with a tiny dog named Cookie whose two pairs of feet refused to be on the ground at the same time, and our ragtag team.
Perhaps it was that part of us that is enamored with roadside attractions, or we were caught up in the strange, powerful aura that some places have. For some reason we all filed onward in silence toward the cars, giving the Cadillac Ranch a weird weight of reverence and respect. It almost felt like we were a group of disciples marching in pilgrimage to a holy land.
The ground around the cars was cakey and damp with mud, and the cars jutted out of the clay and some tufts of grass at a slight angle twelve feet into the air. Years of spray paint covered the cars, with layers upon layers of messages graffitied all over: “Jen was here,” “Life is a journey,” “Jesus Saves,” “Lavez-moi,” “Ireland ’09,” and countless peace signs.
Our group of pilgrims left our own mark on this unorthodox guestbook. I watched as a father shook a bottle of spray paint and handed it to his son. The kid sprayed out “BRANDON” in large black letters along the side of one of the cars, standing on his tiptoes to finish. I don’t think anyone in my band of travelers left any messages for future visitors, unless one of the other guys was industrious enough to ask to borrow of a can of spray paint. I know that I was too busy laughing at the floppy dog and how bizarre everything was that going on around me.
And just as respectful as we were when we first arrived, all twenty-five of us left the Cadillac Ranch at the same time, no one saying a word for the entire walk back.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
6.18.08
Occasionally, I will pull notes and things from my physical journal, a green notebook I keep lying around my room somewhere. The following is the first entry I wrote in it, from June 18th, 2008.
---
And so it goes, once again I find myself pulling back the covers of a notebook and turning to the first page, telling myself, "This will be the one. This will be the journal that will precede all others, the one that will finally break the dams of my pent-up, repressed creative waters and sends ideas cascading from my mind onto paper. This is the one that will coax those ideas out of the dark of my mind. This will be the one to begin it all."
I've told myself this about other journals before, ones that are as plain and uninteresting as this one. I've told myself that about fancy journals, too, the kind meant for real writing. But even the fanciest notebook can still contain the most utterly horrible dreck ever compiled in the English language, all in one convenient place and in nice packaging, to boot. So I feel that this notebook, a light green cover containing seventy-or-so pages bound together by spiraled wire and purchased at the bargain price of ten cents (college-rule, of course), will serve my purposes just as well. I've never been one to dress up to take out the trash or take a shit.
So here is the new notebook, green and uninteresting, both outside and in, at least for the time being. I have every intention of filling these seventy-or-so pages with the thoughts racing around in my head for the opportunity of fruition, the thoughts that jostle one another in the small space of my mind, vying for attention. I very often feel tired just from thinking, simply because my thoughts won't leave one another or me alone.
With that said, I will begin the tedious and arduous task of picking my thoughts apart and reassembling them here, hopefully picking up a piece or two along the way.
I recently graduated from Centenary College of Louisiana, and now that I'm not worrying about schoolwork anymore, my mind is on the verge of exploding. That is not to say that I did little thinking during my undergraduate years; in fact, quite the opposite. My mind was just as active then but I had much more to handle. Between school, work, play, and however else I spent my time, my thoughts had little time to gestate. Now that I've graduated, I have all the time in the world to think, and I do quite a bit of it. However, lately my thoughts have been focusing on having hardly any time left at all. I've always been convinced that I will die at an early age, much too young (at least by others' standards). I've just never been sure when. It's strange that I can be so certain of my early death, but I can offer no guess or approximation as to when it will occur.
With that said, about five years ago, I was certain that I would die on May 17th, 2004. Obviously fate did not follow through, and maybe I'll be stood up again. But can you really call it being stood up this time when when the date was never set in stone?
As I have established, I have always been concerned with my own mortality, as should any lover of life. And perhaps because of that, I have had an overwhelming sense of idleness since I graduated. I can feel that there is something I'm supposed to be doing, but I'm not doing it. Instead, I'm wasting time in Lafayette waiting tables. I know that my time is limited, perhaps more so than others', and I cannot afford to waste time. I see life as a beautifully random phenomenon, and I thank my lucky stars every day that I experience what I can. The glide of my pen along the paper, and the hushing sound of my hand sliding across the lines, the buckshot spray of white on endless blue that dangles above me, infinitely beyond my mental and physical capacity, the sheer massiveness and minuteness of it all, bearing down on my tiny little consciousness like one hundred elephants balancing on a spinning top. It's all so goddamned beautiful, and of all the ways things could have turned out, it just so happens that I'm capable of appreciating it all.
---
And so it goes, once again I find myself pulling back the covers of a notebook and turning to the first page, telling myself, "This will be the one. This will be the journal that will precede all others, the one that will finally break the dams of my pent-up, repressed creative waters and sends ideas cascading from my mind onto paper. This is the one that will coax those ideas out of the dark of my mind. This will be the one to begin it all."
I've told myself this about other journals before, ones that are as plain and uninteresting as this one. I've told myself that about fancy journals, too, the kind meant for real writing. But even the fanciest notebook can still contain the most utterly horrible dreck ever compiled in the English language, all in one convenient place and in nice packaging, to boot. So I feel that this notebook, a light green cover containing seventy-or-so pages bound together by spiraled wire and purchased at the bargain price of ten cents (college-rule, of course), will serve my purposes just as well. I've never been one to dress up to take out the trash or take a shit.
So here is the new notebook, green and uninteresting, both outside and in, at least for the time being. I have every intention of filling these seventy-or-so pages with the thoughts racing around in my head for the opportunity of fruition, the thoughts that jostle one another in the small space of my mind, vying for attention. I very often feel tired just from thinking, simply because my thoughts won't leave one another or me alone.
With that said, I will begin the tedious and arduous task of picking my thoughts apart and reassembling them here, hopefully picking up a piece or two along the way.
I recently graduated from Centenary College of Louisiana, and now that I'm not worrying about schoolwork anymore, my mind is on the verge of exploding. That is not to say that I did little thinking during my undergraduate years; in fact, quite the opposite. My mind was just as active then but I had much more to handle. Between school, work, play, and however else I spent my time, my thoughts had little time to gestate. Now that I've graduated, I have all the time in the world to think, and I do quite a bit of it. However, lately my thoughts have been focusing on having hardly any time left at all. I've always been convinced that I will die at an early age, much too young (at least by others' standards). I've just never been sure when. It's strange that I can be so certain of my early death, but I can offer no guess or approximation as to when it will occur.
With that said, about five years ago, I was certain that I would die on May 17th, 2004. Obviously fate did not follow through, and maybe I'll be stood up again. But can you really call it being stood up this time when when the date was never set in stone?
As I have established, I have always been concerned with my own mortality, as should any lover of life. And perhaps because of that, I have had an overwhelming sense of idleness since I graduated. I can feel that there is something I'm supposed to be doing, but I'm not doing it. Instead, I'm wasting time in Lafayette waiting tables. I know that my time is limited, perhaps more so than others', and I cannot afford to waste time. I see life as a beautifully random phenomenon, and I thank my lucky stars every day that I experience what I can. The glide of my pen along the paper, and the hushing sound of my hand sliding across the lines, the buckshot spray of white on endless blue that dangles above me, infinitely beyond my mental and physical capacity, the sheer massiveness and minuteness of it all, bearing down on my tiny little consciousness like one hundred elephants balancing on a spinning top. It's all so goddamned beautiful, and of all the ways things could have turned out, it just so happens that I'm capable of appreciating it all.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
The Messiah Rides Again, Pt. 1
I found this story in an old notebook of mine from high school earlier today and thought I would share it.
---
A long time ago, before any of you were born, a humble man slept in his favorite chair in a small cottage in New England. The walls were nearly bare, with few decorations to speak of, but it was a comfortable home nonetheless, and he had come to love everything about it. He often sat in this chair in the evenings, usually settling down for the night to read and to slowly drift off to sleep.
He awoke with a start to a loud and repeated banging. Someone with a familiar voice was knocking on his door and yelling, "Savior! Messiah!" He pulled himself out of the chair and walked briskly to the door. Standing in front of him was his good friend, Paul Revere.
"My Lord, it is time," he said, out of breath.
"So it is," Jesus said as he walked back into his house slowly and sat back in his chair. Revere, letting his fear overtake him, shouted," But Jesus, the British are coming! We don't have time to sit down and think about it! We need to do something!" After realizing that he had lost his patience with the risen savior, Revere silenced himself and feared the Lord's reaction.
Jesus thought nothing of Revere's outburst and reached around the sides of his chair to grab his riding boots. He put them on, then sighed, "So it is time."
Jesus mounted his horse and turned to face Revere on his own.
"Are you ready for this?" Revere asked, noticeably paler than usual.
"It doesn't really matter now, does it?" Jesus replied, not feeling sure about the future himself.
They were about to lunge forward into the war for independence, a war that would determine the future of millions of lives. Paul Revere and Jesus Christ may not be on the frontlines of the battlefields; they may not be in the courtrooms of the colonies; they might not be remembered in the annals of the Revolution. But Jesus knew that there comes a time when one must give of himself to better the lives of others. Jesus knew that he and Revere had come to face such a time.
He turned around and sent his horse off, leaving Paul Revere behind. "Good luck," whispered Revere under his breath. "I hope we can do this," he thought to himself as he tried to watch the Messiah ride into the darkness, then rode off.
---
A long time ago, before any of you were born, a humble man slept in his favorite chair in a small cottage in New England. The walls were nearly bare, with few decorations to speak of, but it was a comfortable home nonetheless, and he had come to love everything about it. He often sat in this chair in the evenings, usually settling down for the night to read and to slowly drift off to sleep.
He awoke with a start to a loud and repeated banging. Someone with a familiar voice was knocking on his door and yelling, "Savior! Messiah!" He pulled himself out of the chair and walked briskly to the door. Standing in front of him was his good friend, Paul Revere.
"My Lord, it is time," he said, out of breath.
"So it is," Jesus said as he walked back into his house slowly and sat back in his chair. Revere, letting his fear overtake him, shouted," But Jesus, the British are coming! We don't have time to sit down and think about it! We need to do something!" After realizing that he had lost his patience with the risen savior, Revere silenced himself and feared the Lord's reaction.
Jesus thought nothing of Revere's outburst and reached around the sides of his chair to grab his riding boots. He put them on, then sighed, "So it is time."
Jesus mounted his horse and turned to face Revere on his own.
"Are you ready for this?" Revere asked, noticeably paler than usual.
"It doesn't really matter now, does it?" Jesus replied, not feeling sure about the future himself.
They were about to lunge forward into the war for independence, a war that would determine the future of millions of lives. Paul Revere and Jesus Christ may not be on the frontlines of the battlefields; they may not be in the courtrooms of the colonies; they might not be remembered in the annals of the Revolution. But Jesus knew that there comes a time when one must give of himself to better the lives of others. Jesus knew that he and Revere had come to face such a time.
He turned around and sent his horse off, leaving Paul Revere behind. "Good luck," whispered Revere under his breath. "I hope we can do this," he thought to himself as he tried to watch the Messiah ride into the darkness, then rode off.
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