{"id":5717,"date":"2009-09-18T11:15:17","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T15:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=5717"},"modified":"2009-09-18T11:15:17","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T15:15:17","slug":"travels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/travels\/","title":{"rendered":"Travels"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Way It Is<\/strong><\/p>\n

There’s a thread you follow. It goes
\namong<\/span>
\nthings that change. But it doesn’t
\nchange.<\/span>
\nPeople wonder about what you are
\npursuing.<\/span>
\nYou have to explain about the thread.
\nBut it is hard for others to see.
\nWhile you hold it you can’t get lost.
\nTragedies happen; people get hurt
\nor die; and you suffer and get old.
\nNothing you do can stop time’s
\nunfolding.<\/span>
\nYou don’t ever let go of the thread.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(William Stafford [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

May your trails be crooked, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds, may your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you — beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Edward Abbey, “A Prayer for the Traveler” [apparently not a title Abbey himself used: source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I had a presentiment that the “travelling” phase of my life might be passing. I felt, before the malaise of settlement crept over me, that I should reopen those notebooks. I should set down on paper a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 of the ideas, quotations and encounters which had amused and obsessed me; and which I hoped would shed light on what is, for me, the question of questions: the nature of human restlessness.<\/p>\n

Pascal, in one of his gloomier pens\u00e9es, gave it as his opinion that all our miseries stemmed from a single cause: our inability to remain quietly in a room.<\/p>\n

Why, he asked, must a man with sufficient to live on feel drawn to divert himself on long sea voyages?<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Could it be, I wondered, that our need for distraction, our mania for the new, was, in essence, an instinctive migratory urge akin to that of birds in autumn?<\/p>\n

All the Great Teachers have preached that Man, originally, was a “wanderer in the scorching and barren wilderness of this world” — the words are those of Dostoevsky\u2019s Grand Inquisitor — and that to rediscover his humanity, he must slough off attachments and take to the road.<\/p>\n

My two most recent notebooks were crammed with jottings taken in South Africa, where I had examined, at first hand, certain evidence on the origin of our species. What I learned there — together with what I now knew about the Songlines — seemed to confirm the conjecture I had toyed with for so long: that Natural Selection has designed us — from the structure of our brain-cells to the structure of our big toe — for a career of seasonal journeys on foot through a blistering land of thorn-scrub or desert.<\/p>\n

If this were so; if the desert were “home”; if our instincts were forged in the desert; to survive the rigors of the desert — then it is easier to understand why greener pastures pall on us; why possessions exhaust us, and why Pascal\u2019s imaginary man found his comfortable lodgings a prison.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines<\/em>)<\/p>\n

And then I came across this, from 1994: the band Rush, live in Michigan.\u00a0 I confess to knowing very little about Rush. They seem to be one of those groups which people end up either loving or hating, and I have no idea which camp I’d fall into if I knew more of their music. This particular number, however, slides so smoothly into place with this Friday’s theme — especially on the heels of the Chatwin quote — that I couldn’t let it pass. (Lyrics below.)<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Lyrics:<\/p>\n

Dreamline<\/strong>
\n(words by Neil Peart, music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson)<\/em><\/p>\n

He’s got a road map of Jupiter
\nA radar fix on the stars
\nAll along the highway
\nShe’s got a liquid-crystal compass
\nA picture book of the rivers
\nUnder the Sahara<\/p>\n

They travel in the time of the prophets
\nOn a desert highway straight to the heart of the sun
\nLike lovers and heroes, and the restless part of everyone
\nWe’re only at home when we’re on the run
\nOn the run<\/p>\n

He’s got a star map of Hollywood
\nA list of cheap motels
\nAll along the freeway
\nShe’s got a sister out in Vegas
\nThe promise of a decent job
\nFar away from her hometown<\/p>\n

They travel on the road to redemption
\nA highway out of yesterday — that tomorrow will bring
\nLike lovers and heroes, birds in the last days of spring
\nWe’re only at home when we’re on the wing
\nOn the wing<\/p>\n

When we are young
\nWandering the face of the earth
\nWondering what our dreams might be worth
\nLearning that we’re only immortal —
\nFor a limited time<\/p>\n

Time is a gypsy caravan
\nSteals away in the night
\nTo leave you stranded in dreamland
\nDistance is a long-range filter
\nMemory a flickering light
\nLeft behind in the heartland<\/p>\n

We travel in the dark of the new moon
\nA starry highway traced on the map of the sky
\nLike lovers and heroes, lonely as the eagles cry
\nWe’re only at home when we’re on the fly
\nOn the fly<\/p>\n

We travel on the road to adventure
\nOn a desert highway straight to the heart of the sun
\nLike lovers and heroes, and the restless part of everyone
\nWe’re only at home when we’re on the run
\nOn the run…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Note: <\/strong>The illustration at the top of this post is by Walter Crane, from the 1879 (first?) edition of <\/em>Travels with a Donkey in the C\u00e9vennes<\/a>, by Robert Louis Stephenson. During Stephenson’s journey, he spent a night among the <\/a>pines:
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest, she turns and smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From whiskey river: The Way It Is There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,74,251],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-music","9":"category-poetry-writing_cat","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6kZSG-travels","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5717"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5731,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717\/revisions\/5731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}