I Will Take As Many Words As I Want To Write This Story
[b]Traveling With Myself--a Soul ever Wandering[/b]
[c=#BF0080]I was born in the 1950's and, as such, I am a rebel! Ok-stop laughing, HBU!!! Get that smirk off your face young lady! OK-smirk away then. Geez.
What I mean is those of us that grew up in the 1960's with all that was happening in the world it was hard NOT to be a rebel by the time our teen years arrived. The rebel spirit, the rebellious one, was alive and well. And yet, many of us were a product of our times.
But let us stop there as this is NOT a political or sociological dissertation on my times. Rather it is one about a [i]restless[/i] calling and yearning of the heart and mind. It's that yearning I want to address. One that is prevalent no matter what decade one was born in.
John Steinbeck wrote a travelogue of sorts entitled "Travels With Charley" about traveling the back roads of the USA and of what saw. The novel is more or less a diary. Charley was his dog that accompanied him. As a novel it is a rather good read. John had the same rebellious spirit.
Hemingway would write of exotic places and far away lands. Hemingway was not good with romance and that is a shame as there may have been some great stories to tell of lean men and curvy women of some distant far away lands. Sadly he was a man's man author. Only in movies were his tales romanticized a bit. He had a rebellious heart.
To Robert Frost oft times the romance of life was often not found in the arms of another but in the yearning for the open road. The wandering, which to him equated more of the wandering of the heart, mind and soul than the actual wandering a small distance in a snowy wood or a road not traveled, was to romanticize life and it's journey. AH! but how he loved to leave us guessing. Whose woods were these? Did it [i]really matter?[/i] Was the Pasture a mere recluse or nirvana on Earth? And I can't count the times the I have wondered what the other road was like and what was on it. What did I miss and what may I never see? Do I regret it? Robert had that rebellious spirit as well.
Lastly, there were the countless songs and movies of the 1930's-1960's that spoke of the same. Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour did the "Road" films, Frank Sinatra sang of far off places and traveling to them (with romance in mind, unlike Hemingway, the sad lush!) Frank would also sing a few sad, mournful, dirges(for want of better word) of missing one great distances away. And how the heart yearned and ached for another and the warmth of their arms. Les Baxter made "The Poor People of Paris" sound rather lively! Maybe being poor in Paris at that time was not that bad at that time? The rebellious spirit was not lost in these genres.
And then there is me, a flower child of the 60's. A rebel at heart with beaded jewelry and moccasins. A rebellious chick that used Love's Baby Soft and Gee! Your Hair Smells Terrific! One that helped organize a "sit in" at my school for 10 days to force a policy change- and we GOT IT! The power of the student body was heard.
The longing for the open road calls everyone. Some succumb to it and, like John Steinbeck, travel. And while others may not get that chance the need to to know what is around the corner, past the next curve, down the next grade and in the next pasture is ever petulant in everyone.
Celebrate the rebel that you are and your rebellious spirit!! And the passion that comes with it! [/c]
