I haven't ever felt this. It isn't much of an emotion, more like someone had been stacking dead leaves and twigs for a few weeks and finally struck a match. The smoke billows first. Then the heat forces a few steps away, watching the leaves rescind and release - the yellow flame flashes in your eyes. It burns and all the while you stand there and watch it like you are waiting for something to happen, but the reality is you aren't waiting because what you are looking for is happening just a few small steps away from you. You can't touch it. You won't ever be able to touch it.
It was late afternoon when we stopped for gas somewhere along the Pacific coast highway, a few hours south of Monterrey. The day had been warm with a sea breeze and now it was cooler but the breeze had stopped. It was an average stop for gas, like most of the stops on the trip. Domenic fiddled with the gas pump and noticed it was five dollars a gallon. Brandon went in the store to find some local beef jerky and a bottle of wine. I was stretching my back because it was sore. There was an attendant and I said hello and he smiled. His teeth were like ivory tusks and his skin worn like charcoal. He was wearing a bucket hat with a string that hung limp below his chin. When he smiled I asked him how long he had lived here, in this place, with his hat and his tusks.
"Goin' on about ten years 'ppose," he paused. "I ain't too sure why, but I guess it has something to do with trying to feel that balance of your mind and your spirit."
"Did you find it?"
"It isn't something you find. Some days I know I have it and some I don't, like anything else. It is a constant in that it always is changin'. It ain't like one day I can look in a mirror and be satisfied that I got it. Once you do that, you may lose it forever."
I nodded and looked at my feet then towards the sky. It was hard to see through the redwood canopy.
"How do you feel today?"
"Hungry. A little tired." We looked at each other and we laughed. Brandon was back outside. His boots were untied.
"I'm Will."
"Naidis, pleasure."
"I hear there are some hot springs in the area? Any idea if we could get to those from here, heading north?" Naidis looked around as if trying to scan the hills. We were close to the ocean but we couldn't see it. We were on the top of a hill but we couldn't tell. The road hooked right about one hundred yards up ahead and we couldn't be sure to where.
"You'd have to head back about twenty miles. There are some up ahead but it is at least an eleven hour hike. If you are up for that, then sure."
"Nah, we don't have the equipment for it, thanks though."
"No problem," he smiled, "you fellas have a good life, now."
"Yes sir."
We drove off and the sun was losing strength. For such a beautiful place it was rather expensive. We pulled in Pfieffer National Park and found a place to rest for a few days. After we set up camp we sat around the fire and heard other campers laughter sizzle in the night. The sound of barbeque filled the air. The trees made it very dark but stars punched through holes in the canopy and the fire was all the light we needed.
It was near the end of the trip and we could feel it. It wasn't that we were ready to settle down but it just felt about that time because we expected it. I am as happy as I've been and it is fleeting. I suppose before I left I expected to know more as I sat on the other coast. That after an 'epic' trip across the country I would uncover some kind of wisdom that would help me explain why we do what we do. Wisdom is just a change in perspective. As time goes on it is easier to get an idea of what is real and what is accidental and what is amazing and how silly we are. So much of our lives are spent pining for change that we are rarely willing to accept when it arrives. So much of our happiness is based on what we hope will happen in the future. It is clear now that these expectations are misguided. I think back to the conversation I had with Margaret years ago, and how literal I took it at the time. "This is it, it won't ever be more or less." She was right though in her tone it was more pessimistic than it needed to be. Probably because she felt somewhere deep inside her she could have made 'it' more. That part is up to each of us I suppose. 'It' is all we have - but we have it in us to make it whatever it is we want or believe - or at least thats how I felt amongst the redwoods at Big Sur.
