Deadhorse

 I have wondered what the future will call our species.  The notion of “The Toolmakers” or “The Talker’s” or some such is far too limiting.  We strive for independence and contrarily community in the same breath, diversity and unity.  In our earliest cognizance we imagined and built a way to join the disparate members of our species.  I would propose to our followers or those who should discover our place in time that our epitaph be: “The Road Builders”.

 This would seem so right.  Our metaphor for life is the road we’ve traveled.  Our spirituality whether Buddhist middle road or Christian straight and narrow or even a Hindu wheel roles down this way we’ve made.  Our modern words and thoughts are couriered on electronic paths and information highways much as they were ten’s of thousands of years ago by criers and messengers along the dusty road of history.  The road that connects us makes us whole.

What is left when we reach the end of the road?  Those who think should hope to be Johnny Appleseeds, leaving spread joy for future travelers without concern for the extremity, or should have stacked cairns, poems of stone.  That’s the best remembrance, the flowers and markers we have planted along the way, not for us but for our children.  So many, though, care not for the path and use it callously to reach some destination.  Some even propose a road to Heaven that mystically bypasses the crossroads, and the intrinsic danger of intersection, to some Pure Land, life on easy street…so to speak.

Of course, we all question the why in the road.  It is the most basic concern, this notion of free will to choose the course, and the ramifications should we err in direction.  And if we should leave the road, will we be lost?  What shall be our guide to lead us home?  Some choose the stars and some the Word.  Others just presume one step after the other, one foot before the other and the goal will be reached.  Some too, the unlucky ones, say we are railroaded, driven to the end chosen for us and there is no why.

 I have been blessed and cursed to have all roads open to me to view this world with no barriers and will admit to a failure to follow the rules and continue on past the sign that reads “Road Closed”, sometimes to disaster, sometimes to divine wonder.  Are the signs really the road?  Are all the signs a reflection of veracity or are they reflection of timidity?  Best, I think, that the signs are to be interpretative of the conditions that surround us.  Should we see the signs let them be an oracle to be mused, with no constraint beyond wisdom.

 The open road exposes us to trial and reward and the cost of revelation.  Tunnels ease the heights but obscure the lofty vision of the high road and covered bridges protect but leave us without comprehension of the music of the brook.  The desert road can parch us, burn us black and bring a wind to tear the flesh raw and bleeding.  The mountain road may have no shoulder to bear our load should its cold icy high way be impassible. We may fall apostate back to our beginnings.  The Arctic road with its hoary beasts manifests our fears of the larger problem as it did our ancestors.  Along the cliffed sea shore way we shiver at perpetuity and on the sand beach road bitter smell memories of the sea salt within our blood. Woe to thee who presumes permanence and travels the ocean way ice road, yes, here today and gone this day too.

 To take the road less traveled may not further us.  It may even leave us broken with bones shattered and stage red hot plowshares, not to determine guilt as an ordeal, the road knows no innocence, but to present a fiery absolution, a contradiction.  The trail less traveled is always a hard row.  It is not a gift of uncommon knowledge but an imposition. Still we are left accomplished, sated with trial regardless the outcome.  We have hit the road.

 It is argued that the view from the road is skewed by motion , blurred by speed.  Those that share that perspective don’t realize their place in this twirling universe, their point on the road.  The sight from the road is an evidence of the sight of the road and inversely for sure.  To be on the road is not movement other than that essential need that governs the planets. It is often advised to stop and smell the roses, though, standing in the middle of the road is medianly dangerous.  Only the path will provide the deep sight and introspection.  When atop the great passes Atigun, Loveland, Donner and La Veda that only the road can take us, we are like angels and can see how small we are.  When the path takes us into the great gaps of the Delaware, Newfoundland or Cumberland we are wrapped in the honey suckle nearly caught in the rosin of time, like the rocks in the canyons of Chinle or La Cache de Poudre.  The plains, deserts and tundra roads offer the answer to infinity where past and future meld and no matter how far you travel you never leave the point where you are until a new day breaks on a snow capped peak or night falls on a mighty river.

The back road is the way, not the highway and the dirt road feels best in bared feet.  Every sage seems to say “take my way it’s the highway that’s the best.”  Who is to be believed when value is placed on the destination rather than the journey?  But on the back road you will meet the angels, the tinker, the tailor, the candle stick maker and the bearded farmer in black and the cowboy on his horse’s back.  They provide the lessons.  The road can not teach.  It is just a medium, a canvas for the artist.  The back road does not bypass the living or the dead.  It is filled with places, with names, some of which are now grave markers to dreams once vibrant and some seem birth announcements, colorful and ballooned of hopes.  It is said that you can’t get anywhere on a back road.  That is true, because you are already there.

So, I have reached the end of this road, a tiny ugly town aptly named (if you have ever seen one) Deadhorse, as far north as the roads go.  It is the terminus, the extreme, the end, the point where you can go no further.  It is curious that I have traveled on a rainbow, with angels and mythical creatures and children sent to play in the road, and, this is the pot at the end.  I am glad it was not my destination.  I will now turn around and start the adventure anew and refreshed reminded that heaven is not a place but a journey on a road.

On the Road to Deadhorse