about bliss

Monday, October 26, 2009

daily bliss: on the road

During my angsty grad school days, I wrote a dissertation on the spiritual quest in male and female Beat writers' works. 

There's something about that particular pilgrimage—the spiritual, not so much the Beat—that appeals to me. A journey for something ineluctable, intangible, and yet transformative. 

I like to think we're all searching, each in her or his own way, for something infused with meaning. 

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I love road trips, those times when the miles slip away under the humming car wheels, when scenery shifts and slides from one landscape to the next. Those times when the small space inside the car seems to contain the whole world, whether you're traveling along, accompanied by good tunes and your own meandering thoughts, or with a traveling companion (or two or four), whose own thoughts dance with your own, filling the hours with innumerable tangents. 

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Is life more about the journey than the destination? Endless thinkers, poets, seekers, and musicians pose this question, and some go as far to answer (thank you, Miley Cyrus).

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Are we there yet?

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The world shifts, tilts, and rearranges itself when the car door opens. 

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Are we where we were before?

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Does "a journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step?" (Lao Tzu) and "what is this self I will loose if I leave what I know?" (Joanne Kyger)

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A warm car, eclectic tunes, car snacks, laughter, real soul talk, travel games, and a hand to hold. 

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The journey is here. 
The journey is now. 
The journey has just begun. 

(don't stop believin'/hold onto that feelin')




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