Miles of corn stalks, rusty self-service gas stations, an ice cold coke in a glass bottle, the sound of wind at 70 miles per hour, the feeling of hot air as your hand cuts through the night sky, the resolution to try new things and embrace the solitude. The Great American Road Trip is a uniquely American right of passage for many of us. This wanderlust forces us into wide open spaces and asks us to let go of the comfortable and reach instead, for the unfamiliar just for the sake of the journey.Christina asked me recently if I thought the road trip was a uniquely American experience. I’ve had past road trips on the mind lately while a few of my friends were setting out on their own. One could travel from anywhere to anywhere, but when I imagine this road trip it’s usually on old Route 66. Traveling west for the purpose of experiencing the journey is, in my opinion, a right of passage for any American. In that sense, yes, I think the road trip is a uniquely American experience.
How many books, movies and songs chronicle this journey or another one like it? There is the obvious, Jack Kerouac’s, On the Road--a rambling story without plot that revels in the American Road trip experience. Even the Food Network is embracing the road trip with a new show called “Feasting On Asphalt.” In fact, I think the kind of Americana that can only be experienced on a road trip of our highways and byways is experiencing a resurgence. These cultural reminders make me crave the open road in an almost inappropriate way.
What is it about wide open spaces that draws us? The sun that burns every day, now warms as we sail above the asphalt and the stars that go ignored every night, force us the dream of all the other unexplored areas in the universe. “What else is out there,” you ask yourself as you drive stoically down a deserted highway in the dark, or through a whispering ghost town in the middle of the desert. Out here, it’s easy to realize that the whole process is nothing short of mobile meditation. Can we remake ourselves on the road?
Why is it cheap motels with buzzing neon signs appeal to us when we’re on the road, but not in the city? Why do we guzzle burgers in our daily lives, but savor them in their white paper wrappers when they’re purchased from a tiny roadside diner? I think we are revealed to ourselves in our errand-free loneliness. The road trip is an almost intimidating symbol of freedom because, when all you have is a map, a full tank of gas and few great CDs, it seems anything is possible and you can be anyone you wish to be.
1 comment:
Naomi-
If you ever figure out the answer to this question, let me know. Road trips and open spaces are one of the things in life I'm very passionate about, and it only intensifies the older I get. It's a spiritual experience, at least for me. I need to step away and feel like there is a world that goes beyond the routine of quiet apartments, phone calls to realtors, weights and eliptical machines, and overall isolation. There is a human condition of needing to feel as if you're going somewhere. A road trip or vacation is a segue to the next chapter in your life....even if it really isn't. When I'm in Oklahoma, I feel so stuck like I'm not going anywhere. I feel, dare I say, powerless.
On the road, I'm in control. I'm going somewhere, and I'm not defined by the desk I sit at, the car I drive, or the 800 square feet in this world that is "my" space. Route 66 and/or Interstate 40 west is Heaven on Earth. It's the symbol of being bigger and more powerful than reality says I am.
That was far more than I intended to write.
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