Go Forth

Go Forth

Observe and Listen

To Nature's Teaching

In the Open Woods

Visualize the journey

All who wander are not lost

It's not the destination, it is the journey

It's a trip!

I'm just a wayfaring stranger

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

I don't know where I'm going,

But I know what to do

Wanderlust

Directionless

Home? It’s where your hat is

What makes us begin, set out, go forth? What is the hunger, the need that propels us to say, I’m out of here? Perhaps it is curiosity or indeed hunger, want or fear that makes us put one foot in front of the other. Think great migration, think climate refugee, think no more arable soil, or job loss, loved ones gone. Can we step into the unknown? Do we have the luxury to choose travel, adventure? Who knows, for each of us is different. Who mentors us, who leads, who whispers, who shouts, who says follow? Who says, “You can do it.”

"My stars, my stars," said my grandmother as she lay in her last bed, white hair spread wide over a lacy white counterpane; my mother stepped quietly into her room. "This too, will happen to you," said my grandmother to my mother. “You will get old someday.”

"This too, will happen to you," said my white haired mother at the end, under her counterpane, hands like lace grasping mine. “Do what you do well,” she said, “And love your life, it is a gift. Don’t be sad, don’t be sad, I’ve had my life. Use yours now.”

Oh, those seeds

Our mothers and grandmothers planted

Those seeds shoot up like beanstalks

Lead us to our stars.

And I have the strength of my father's wisdom,

It is in my soul

(Not in my arthritic bones)

And in the soil between my fingers.

I am still green, ready to go

I can do this

On the cover of my notebook it says, “Travel: the only thing you buy that makes you richer.”

I hope I have enough money

I follow back roads and photograph post offices as a way to keep track of where I’ve been. I just want to roam, ramble, look and see.

At one post office my camera acted up and I went in and out of the car muttering to myself, what’s wrong? As I left town befuddled and confused as to direction, a police car pulled me over. "Are you OK?" the officer asked. "Why yes," I said, "But my camera isn't." He asked for my license. When he came back he said I was free to go, that someone had called in worried about me. "Drive safely," he said, with as much kindness as if he’d been a family member. Drive safely.

I open the windows of the van to flap out the flies. There are no anxieties when you travel by yourself. No one says, I already saw that, or what? you're stopping again? Or, p-yew, I'm not interested in bugs, or where are we going to spend the night? I don't know and I don't care, it's the journey. You can talk to yourself out loud and sing old songs, fart or burp up Dr. Pepper and beef jerky. Heck, you can drink Dr. Pepper. Then, alone in the wilderness, look what I find: a discarded blue beer can, drat, I pick up the litter, and then a wonderfully erect monolith, a huge phallic rock. I stop to take a photo, it is still 90 degrees and I am 40 miles from my destination wherever that is. You can say anything you want when you see something unusual, like Holy fucking guacamole! Your memories can surface and weave into the present as you knit the fabric of your dreams and pinch yourself that you are really here and not afraid.

Yes. Drive safely, walk softly, take care, take time, slow down, and look. And look. This is a wonderful landscape; its scars are still fresh, its story still unfolds. Its people, behind their walls, in the leaflets at the National Monuments, in the voices of the historical markers, have their stories to tell, of loss and love and hope.

Of joy unbounded, of stormed destruction and pain. We need to watch and listen. Step carefully, we walk on the bones of others. We do not walk alone.

But we might drive alone. "Are you traveling by yourself?" a woman at a gas pump in Nebraska asks me. "Yes," I say.

"Camping?" she says, and eyeing my license plate, "You've come a long way. Don't you get scared? Do you have a gun? A dog?"

"No dog, no gun, I'm OK," I say.

She asks more questions, then says, "I've always wanted to do that, travel around the country by myself, look at things, go to National Parks."

“Are you 62 years old?” I ask. “Have you got your National Park Senior Access Pass? It’s without a doubt the best bargain in America. Travel is easier than you think," I say. "Don't drive at night, stop early, go slowly. Take back roads, use a paper map, stop often. Make sure your bed is comfy. Wear old clothes. Eat simply."

"I can't wait," she says, "I want to be just like you."

But you don't even know me, I think. We each must take our own trip, make of it what we will. When I first started to get ready my daughter said, "Buy a cell phone, text me every night so I know you are safe. Just go to a phone store, they'll tell you what to do. Keep asking questions until you figure it out. I have confidence in you."

When I told my son about taking this trip, he said, "YOLO, Mama, YOLO."

"What's that?" I said.

"You only live once, Mom, you can do it, I have confidence in you.

Well, go Nellie. I've come a long way; now my kids are saying to me what I used to say to them and what we should all say to our children (and to ourselves when we start out into the unknown) - I have confidence in you, you can do this. Now, I can text with the best of them and yolo until the cows come home. And by the way, you'll see a lot of cows on your big road trip, just make sure you take the back roads and all the scenic byways, enjoy the flowers, and the big rocks. You won't believe how beautiful this country is. You'll be amazed at how much fun you'll have. YOLO! Go forth.

With special thanks to Nick Baker, Zoe Johnson and Jeff Pfahl (pronounced Fall) Yolo!