Highways, and the Hitchhiker's Memory

Time Away From the Lotus Position

I’d spent a week hunkered in the swallow of a driftwood pine along the Pacific coast trail on Vancouver Island. The only book I had was a leather and bead bound new testament given to me by a Jesus freak I met in Ashland Oregon. Burned out, I lived on green tea and seaweed. I read the Bible and listened to the bellowing Pacific.

It was time to go home. So I hitch-hiked back to Berkeley. After a long night spent in a tube tent, marinating in rain of the Northern California coast, I peeled myself from the cocoon at daybreak. I began the day with a swig of water from a weathered plastic bottle and a few bites of a granola bar.

As a ritualistic tribute to the morning, I consulted the I-Ching, allowing the fall of the coins to impart wisdom for the day ahead.

As always, oracle proclaimed: "Perseverance Furthers". The words stuck to me like wet pine needles to my boots.

I put my thumb out and hoped for a ride. Cars ignored me like I wet ghost. Despite the chill of wet clothes sticking to my skin, I kept my back straight, my thumb up and my spirits alive.

Persistence paid off. I finally caught a ride in a battered pickup. No room in the cab, I jumped the back, relieved to be moving.

An hour of rain later, sun broke through the clouds and the world transformed. The Trinity Alps caught the early fire of cloud piercing sun. It was wild, big-foot country and I was flying over it.

The sun dried my skin and exploded my mind with explosive jolt of freedom. There was a rhythm, a dance, a roaring in the veins. I felt the sun breaking through my long, cold night.

I am the song of the mountains, a hymn of vast open spaces and uncharted paths, a crescendo of self-discovery that howls with the wind.

I soar over the Alps. I hear a chorus chanting, "Perseverance Furthers!”

I hear it still, an echo in the meat of memory after half a century.