And then it’s December and you’re still trekking (but getting somewhere maybe) and there’s that old, bluesy, down-home American thing there’s really no use explaining that people can sometimes touch. Sycamores, coffee, and waffles, Memphis, guitar strings, and chains, Reno, lassos, and a dusty old judge. What is it but a sad-eyed wisdom that climbs outside of itself, winks, and laughs?
It’s what these folks are on about, at least. So here’re some more highway musings on that thing from some of the best.
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway
So there you go, following the signs, and it gets easier after it gets harder, ‘cept now it’s just you, yourself, and I (she’s sitting shotgun) and it’s still a lil like where are we going and whence and why? But you’ve come a long way:
Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon mount the hill toward her, Lena thinks, ‘I have come from Alabama: a fur piece. All the way from Alabama a-walking. A fur piece.’ Thinking although I have not been quite a month on the road I am already in Mississippi, further from home than I have ever been before. I am now further from Doane’s Mill than I have been since I was twelve years old. (Faulkner)
But if you sit still too long ain’t nothin’ good gonna come of it now, it’ll all catch up with you, so:
I got to keep movin', I got to keep movin'
Blues fallin' down like hail, blues fallin' down like hail
…
And the days keeps on worryin’ me
There's a hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail (Robert Johnson)
But man’s gotta eat, and woman too — besides there’s nothing better to do, indeed “no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry” (Qoheleth 8:15), so stop in at that diner, wouldja?, maybe make a friend while you’re at it:
Coyote’s in the coffee shop
He’s staring a hole in his scrambled eggs
He picks up my scent on his fingers
While he's watching the waitresses’ legs
He’s too far from the Bay of Fundy
From appaloosas and eagles and tides
And the air conditioned cubicles
And the carbon ribbon rides
Are spelling it out so clear
Either he's going to have to stand and fight
Or take off out of here
I tried to run away myself
To run away and wrestle with my ego……You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway. (Joni Mitchell)
But in all honesty best beat it on outta there now before coyote gets hungry again and don’t frickin’ give him your number either because his romantic delusions… well, you know. Because you can:
Expect poison from standing water. (William Blake)
And:
In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak, but for that one must have long legs. (Nietzsche)
Indeed, you need not fear:
The way is empty, yet use will not drain it.
Deep, it is like the ancestor of the myriad creatures.
Blunt the sharpness;
Untangle the knots;
Soften the glare;
Let your wheels move only along old ruts.
Darkly visible, it only seems as if it were there.
I know not whose son it is.
It images the forefather of God. (Lao Tzu)
So:
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. (Blake)
Because:
The cut worm forgives the plow. (Blake)
And:
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. (Blake)
And if it really gets right down to it, and you’re between a rock and hard place with one of ‘em lookin’ a whole lot softer, make sure you find the right spot:
God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be putting me on”
God say, “No,” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but the
Next time you see me comin’ you better run.”
Well Abe says, “Where you want this killing done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61.” (Bob Dylan)
So off you go, further and further west, and “you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking”:
I was headed out down a long bone-white road, straight as a string and smooth as glass and glittering and wavering in the heat and humming under the tires like a plucked nerve. I was doing seventy-five but I never seemed to catch up with the pool which seemed to be over the road just this side of the horizon. Then, after a while, the sun was in my eyes, for I was driving west. So I pulled the sun-screen down and squinted and put the throttle to the floor. And kept on moving west. For West is where we all plan to go some day. it is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and see the blood on it. it is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. It is where you go when you hear that thar’s gold in them thar hills. It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go. It was just where I went. (Robert Penn Warren)
And hopefully you’ve got someone dialed doing the driving, kissing that white line:
Off we went, north to Washington, on 301, a straight two-lane highway without much traffic. And Dean talked, no one else talked. He gestured furiously, he leaned as far as me sometimes to make a point, sometimes he had no hands on the wheel and yet the car went as straight as an arrow, not for once deviating from the white line in the middle of the road that unwound, kissing our left front tire. (Kerouac)
I’m a-sailin’ away my own true love
Unfortunately though (and lucky for you also):
One cannot travel on the Path before one has become that Path himself. (Henry Miller)
This is the way of life, you have to do it and live it and keep on going:
Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life. (Kerouac)
And you feel some type of way when it happens, another departure, or when someone else is doing the leaving all of a sudden or you’re heading down forking paths:
Oh, sad, sad day
Since my baby, she went away
Oh, sad, sad day
Since my baby she went away
How long she been cheatin’
I just found it out yesterdayOh, sad, sad day
My baby, she don't love me no more
Oh, sad, sad day
My baby, she don't love me no more
You know if you don't want me little girl
I pack my few rags and go (Muddy Waters)
And every moment can arrest you because someone’s always leaving, but remember it’s just a misdemeanor — until it isn’t:
A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world. (Kerouac)
And it’s hard to tell, exactly, through all the longing, but boots certainly won’t do — until they do…
Oh, I’m sailing away, my own true love
I'm sailing away in the morning
Is there something I can send you from across the sea?
From the place where I'll be landing?There’s nothing you can send me, my own true love
There’s nothing I’m a-wishing to be owning
Just carry yourself back to me unspoiled
From across that lonesome oceanOh, but I just thought you might want something fine
Maybe silver or of golden
Either from the mountains of Madrid
Or from the coast of BarcelonaIf I had the stars of the darkest night
And the diamonds from the deepest ocean
I’d forsake them all for your sweet kiss
That’s all I’m a-wishing to be owningOh, I might be gone a long ol’ time
And it’s only that I’m asking
Is there something I can send you to remember me by?
To make your time more easy passing?How can, how can you ask me again?
Well it only brings me sorrow
Oh, the same thing I would want today
I would want again tomorrowOh, I got a letter on a lonesome day
It was from his ship a-sailing
Saying, I don’t know when I’ll be coming back again
It depends on how I’m feelingIf you, my love, must think that away
I’m sure your mind is a-roaming
I’m sure your thoughts are not with me
But with the country where you’re goingSo take heed, take heed of the western wind
Take heed of stormy weather
And yes, there is something you can send back to me
Spanish boots of Spanish leather… (Bob Dylan)
Then you try chasin’, crossing that lonesome ocean all the way over to Spain, but you gotta be prepared to come back empty-handed, because you don’t mess with the Atlantic, or the Mississippi for that matter, and some ships aren’t seen again:
I met her accidentally in St. Paul, Minnesota,
And it tore me up every time I heard her drawl, Southern drawl,
Then I heard my dream was back downstream cavortin’ in Davenport,
And I followed you, Big River, when you called.Then you took me to St. Louis later on, down the river,
A freighter said she’s been here, but she’s gone, boy, she’s gone,
I found her trail in Memphis, but she just walked up the bluff,
She raised a few eyebrows and went on down alone.Now, won’t you paddle down by Baton Rouge, River Queen, rollin’ on.
Take that woman on down to New Orleans, New Orleans,
Go on, I’ve had enough, dump my blues down in the gulf,
She loves you, Big River, more than me.Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry, cry, cry,
And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky,
And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you Big River,
And I’m gonna sit right here until I die. (Johnny Cash)
Yup, it sure do be like that:
Well, I
Wait around the train station
Waitin’ for that train
Take me, take me
Take me away
From this
Lonesome town
Lonesome town
Too bad you don’t love me no more, girl
Too bad your people put me down
Hey, hey, hey (Jimi Hendrix)
When the train comes through though, and you board with just a Nalgene half-full and a box of matches, well then it’s a familiar feeling and you’re all set for your next stop: the widening gyre…
Part 3 of this lit review coming soon — to finish off “Dispatches from the Road”! Be well.
- DVD