We've made it to Florida and have only made one stop for gas and food. We've all gotten to the point of putting on head phones to listen to music or watch TV shows; We're reading or air drumming to whatever it is we're listening to. Actually, only Eric does the drumming - but it isn't really drumming...I think you'll have to ask him what it is exactly. Once in a while we break out of our spell to answer a text message or make a joke about a sign along the road, all the while Andrew plugs on with driving.
And after a few attempts to read that have failed due to my ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, I have successfully read a chapter of a book I have read countless times. Part 1 Chapter 1 of On The Road by jack Kerouac. I borrowed this book from my friend Jared awhile back and started it. But each time I started it had an interval of about a month so I just started over each time. I've since given his copy back and bought a copy of my own - two in fact. But one was intended as a gift that will never be given.
The last line of this chapter caught my head - much like it has each time I've read it:
Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.I have read further on thru this - only to chapter 6 at the most. But what is this pearl he talks of? I assume that it's different for everyone - and that's why this line fits everyone. I've been into books lately that have been about hitting the road and having an adventure. I read one by Don Miller, Through Painted Deserts, and am half way thru a book titled Wild At Heart - about how men are driven for adventure. And after I read Miller I knew that I wanted to read On The Road. I actually went thru a phase of buying every book of Kerouac's that I came across. I started one called The Dharma Bums but it fell to the wayside. I intend to read it one day too. I intend to do a lot of things that may never happen. We'll see.
But it was from reading these books that led me to crave an adventure - something to do that was challenging. My friends back home and I are planning a camping trip when I go home in June and my father and I are planning a trip out west to explore the desert together. This road trip may not be an adventure like that, but it's something. It's the road - and the road is therapeutic. I find it calming. And I think it stems back to why I started on long drives and what that meant to me.
And I don't know what I'm looking for, what I need. I have ideas and I have desires - some of which may never come to pass. But I know that somewhere along the line the pearl will be handed to me - whatever it may be. And I would like to feel prepared and equipped to receive it well when that time comes.
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