Interview with a Hitchhiker

He sat leaned up against the guardrail to my right in front of the Booneville post office, a contented smile on his face, his blue and milky eyes mimicking the August sky, if not able to reflect it. A worn and well-loved knapsack sat on the ground next to him, the only other object in the world that, if it could talk, would be able to tell you all of the things that the two of them had experienced together.

I’ve always held onto a romantic and completely irrational envy of the hobo. Granted, my housemates would roll their eyes and be quick to point out to you, the reader, my J. Crew-infused wardrobe and inability to create a meal without using twenty-four ingredients and every pot in the kitchen – evidence that I not only couldn’t cut it riding my thumb out on the road, but that I probably couldn’t make it a hundred miles in my Cobalt without a GPS and a Starbucks. Nevertheless, I can’t think of too many occupations that would naturally allow for better stories and, thus, I covet this one.

I turned these thoughts over in my head as I watched the man. My world is so very different from his. Mine contains beautiful relationships with wonderful individuals; his contains a single overwhelmingly intimate relationship with the road. My alarm clock wakes me up from my warm bed every morning; his wake-up call is when the rising sun hits the windshield of the abandoned car he’s sleeping in. From Monday through Friday, I basically know which occupation and responsibilities will fill my time; he works when he needs to eat, and never once wonders if a meal will come his way. He places his complete trust and whole self at the mercy of the endless stretch of highway in front of him. He has forsaken all permanent and tangible human relationships in favor of a life of solitude and off-beat adventure. His dearest friend is the stranger who gives him a lift or a five-dollar bill. He loves it. And a part of me wants it.

A left turn would take me to my office with its desk covered in hurriedly scribbled notes and its phone with messages recorded by cherished old voices. My day would be filled with the interactions that I’ve come to adore these past seven months, comfortable and predictable as they’ve now come to be. But I couldn’t help myself.

“Where ya headed?” I hollered out my rolled down window. He glanced in my direction, neither enthusiastically nor nonchalantly. I was just another passer-through (albeit a very excited one).

“Beattyville,” he drawled. That meant that I’d be back in Booneville within the half hour. My mind was made up. “Hop in!”

He picked up his bag and slowly walked over, asking if I was sure I didn’t mind. “Not at all,” I smiled. “It’s on the way.” He put all of his worldly belongings in the back of my van and stuck his head through the passenger-side window to thank me once more before climbing in. I did a double take.

“Road Dust?!”

It was the nephew of one of my favorite participants. I’d spent a few afternoons with him on her front porch in the past, holding my breath and not daring to blink or interrupt as he told me story after story of his adventures on the road. He’s been hitchhiking since the age of sixteen – that’s almost forty years of being a true vagabond. He’s gotten into numerous fights, saved a few lives, and come close to losing his own. And, though his health has begun to fail him, he has no plans to settle down any time soon. He loves the freedom that this lifestyle affords him, and will probably continue in this vein until he dies.

It would come as a surprise to anyone just meeting him, but Road Dust is a very talented artist; his specialties are buildings and landscapes. Having discovered this from his aunt during his last visit, I asked him to sketch me a church. I received it after Road Dust had already jumped onto a passing truck en route to his next destination. It hangs in my room now, an 8.5 x 11 inch looseleaf masterpiece (to me, anyway).

We chatted as I brought him to the highway about where he’d been and what he’d been up to during the past few months. He hadn’t decided yet whether he’d be Cincinnati-bound or sleeping in Georgia that night. He did mention, not without blushing, that his aunt had suggested that I’d “make him a good woman” (a claim which she later roundly denied, revealing that the idea actually came from the bachelor himself). When I pulled over to let him out, he flashed a big smile, shook my hand, and said that he’d see me later.

As I watched him trudge toward Route 52, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of loneliness for him. Later that morning I sat at my familiar desk, called up a few of my familiar participants, drove around the familiar courthouse square, and visited a lot of familiar houses. I received big hugs from familiar arms and discussed familiar topics with familiar folks who have come to see me as one of their own.

There’s a big wide beautiful world out there, for sure, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it someday soon.

But, for now, familiar will do quite nicely.

Hiatus

My sincerest apologies to those who are kind enough to glance at this little diary every now and then. Due to an unfortunate and sudden rendezvous between my laptop and an overly aggressive glass of juice, I haven’t had the luxury of banging away at my keyboard during the occasional late night when sleep eludes me. Therefore, since it would appear that my own computer won’t be of much use to me any time soon, I’ll be moving my writer’s workshop to the community room of the Jackson House, my temporarily blank pages to its over-sized computer screen. And I’ll try to catch you up a little on the stories I’ve been withholding for the past month and a half. But, for now, I’ll just give you a sense of how I’m doing.

Life’s been feeling very much like a storm-battered ship lately. We’re in the middle of a lot of turnover here at J-House and, while I love the folks who are here very much, I’ve bid farewell to quite a few members of my family in the past few weeks, and it’s made for a heavy heart at times.

Admittedly, I’ve never been very good at saying goodbye. As a result, I usually opt out of saying it at all. “I’ll be seeing you” tends to be my phrase of choice; it postpones the inevitable reality that life isn’t slowing down, people are moving on, and relationships are changing rapidly. Of course, our lives are punctuated by a series of hellos and goodbyes. They essentially form the parameters of all of our human contact. In one way or another, you and any person you’ve ever come across have greeted each other; something within you sought out and reached something within that other person, whether he’s the man you married or the guy who changed your oil last week. Where you both went after that initial contact is a matter of personal choice and chance, I suppose. But, when everything is said and done, you and your friend will part ways. Maybe it’ll be death that separates you. Maybe an argument and a broken heart. Maybe a smile, a handshake, and a hand-off of keys.

Or maybe it’ll be a new school, a new job, a new opportunity. Perhaps life will ultimately be what comes between you. And, in many ways, that’s something to be celebrated. If love means truly, selflessly, and actively seeking the greatest good for another person, then moving on to that which God has planned for us not only calls for happiness, but for rejoicing.

And, as I stroll down this shady old Kentucky dirt road with these incredible individuals, I will rejoice with them. I’ll get excited with them about tomorrow. I’ll smile as they embrace the gifts of looking back down this road they’ve traveled on – far past the point at which I’m standing – and of acknowledging how much they’ve grown and how far they’ve come. And then I’ll smile until it hurts as they head toward a path that breaks away from the road that I’m on. With a final hug (and more than a few tears on my part), I’ll watch them disappear through the trees and stride toward a new set of challenges and triumphs. Then I’ll link arms with the ones who are still on this blessed patch of dirt, and we’ll keep walking. Soon enough, one of those paths will emerge from the woods and produce a new sister here and a new brother there, and I’ll fall in love all over again.

This moment – the one between the hellos and the goodbyes – will never happen again. I think, really, that its passing is the thing that I mourn. But the sun that shines on us as we walk now is that same that did when we walked with the ones who’ve left. The wildflowers growing on the side of the road, the muddy lake up at Camp AJ, our roof (above which the shooting stars and fireflies are brightest) – all of these things bear witness to this moment and to all passing ones. These fragments of time are indelibly a part of who I am and who I have every hope of becoming. And when my little path comes up on my current dirt road, I’ll know that I loved with every inch of my heart. And I’ll have left nothing on the table.