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It was a last-minute trip to recharge the batteries. I went for a week and decided to start my journey in San Francisco. I didn't know where the trip would take me, though I ended up in a small town near Oregon's southwestern tip, hugging the coastline. I had a goal: wind down while preparing for the task ahead. I succeeded, because I don't recall ever being so relaxed. My mind busied itself with things to do and roads to maneuver and problems to worry about, but none of it seemed real --- or at least none of it seemed pressing. It was a gift. For a week I could wander as a vagabond with empty pockets, a full gas tank and some of the most magnificent scenery this country has to offer.
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I sought the ragged fins of great whites along the rocky coastlines, yet saw not a one. I ate vegetarian sushi and some of the best bean burritos Humboldt County has to offer. I woke up early and stayed up late. I drank bad wine. I listened to too many episodes of "This American Life." I wandered while those around me labored. I knew what it meant to "just live." I spent money only on necessities and the simplest of comforts: food and drink, shelter, fossil fuels.
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A piece of me never returned from that trail. There, standing on a bed of soft dirt and pine needles, I closed my eyes and absorbed the soft, sweet-smelling wind that snaked past the trunks of centuries-old giants and rustled the fronds of prehistoric-seeming ferns. I listened to nothing: no traffic, no airplanes, no engines wheezing, no blustering car horns, no needless chatter, no dogs barking, no neighbors yammering through paper-thin walls, no ugly babies crying, no basketballs bouncing, no phones ringing --- nothing but silence. Only then did I realize the damage I have done to my ears over the past two decades. There was no noise, making the ringing in my head almost deafening.
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It's quite easy to see why real estate is so expensive along the West Coast. Yet the crazed, oversized cities such as Los Angeles and San Diego have no pulse to me. Instead, give me the ruggedness and rawness and flowering hillsides of Northern California and Oregon.
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I did my best to leave behind fear of the unknown and failed relationships and broken dreams and feelings of inadequacy and childhood disappointment and unrealistic expectations. I cast off much of this debris in those seven days, but I also left some things out there I would like to have back. I hope to go back someday soon and reconcile the two, picking up those pieces I never intended to lose.
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