USA, 1995
I was sitting on the floor of a Greyhound bus station in Washington, D.C. when the wanderlust wore off and I decided that I wanted to go home.
It had been almost two months since I got off the plane in New York, stricken with a bad case of wanderlust, packing a small suitcase and a good pair of hiking boots. Since then, I'd dragged myself up and down the East Coast, and made little side trips to Chicago, Detroit and Ohio, before going on back to New York. I'd made a pact with myself not to stay in any one place for more than two weeks—one or two days, sometimes just a few hours, was enough before I went on to the next stop.
I remember meeting Jack Kerouac, once, in a dream.
I'd just finished reading On the Road, and in my dream, Jack urged me to take to the road.
It'll be cool, he said. Just remember to keep your eyes and ears open, let things happen. It'll be good.
That in mind, and with Jack Kerouac's blessing, I packed my bags, chucked all caution to the wind, said all my see-ya-laters, and plane tickets in hand, took off for parts unknown.
Kerouac had romanticized for me the idea of being a traveler. Not a tourist, mind you, but a traveler—a distinction that meant I could choose to forget that Jack Kerouac was used as a Gap model long after his death, and sneer at the camera-toting, Bermuda-shorted people, shun hotel accommodations and first-class plane seats (either of which I couldn't afford anyway), and go through several days and several states without a shower or a change of clothes. It was almost self-destructive, true; and although all I had in mind was fun, I soon found that there were lessons to be learned from the rough roads.
I WAS NEXT IN GEORGIA, having skipped the natural tourist destination of Atlanta for a mountain retreat in Blue Ridge. It's the type of place where everybody knows everybody else; where the waitresses at the Pizza Hut call you "honey" and apologize for not having a proper box for your pizza. And that is the town.
The mountain itself is pretty much untouched. A few houses, all of them rustic country numbers, overlooking a clearwater lake. The host family, friends of friends, graciously ignored my gatecrashing and grilled me about life in the Philippines.
The children have never seen the country, and I tried my best to paint a good picture. But the more I talked about my home country, the more I felt like a stranger to it. Not that I wasn't proud of it; it was just that I felt like I was describing just every other place I had been to. What makes a place home?
The next day, I excused myself from my hosts, and started out into the forest.
Blue Ridge's lake shone brilliant blue-green in the dusk. I walked along the lakeshore until I found a stream that headed into the woods. I followed it until I could hear only complete silence, two hours' worth of walking in uncharted woods. Stripping off my boots, I walked into red mud, found a rock to sit on, and stood still.
First lesson from the road: If you sit in a place long enough it will feel like you've been there forever.
MADAME CORA * * PSYCHIC READING $2 * * PALMS READ * * $5 * * TAROT * * $10
Back in New York a few days later, in the Bohemian holdout that was the East Village, I went into a creaky apartment where a bucket was filling up with water dripping from the ceiling. A thin Hispanic man in an undershirt and jeans came from behind the paper partition. "You looking for Madame Cora? She's down there," he mumbled, pointing out the window to the sidewalk.
I was bored, and a palm reading from a fake gypsy seemed a likely diversion. I laid out my palms in front of Madame Cora. For the first five minutes that she read my past and my future, I wore a skeptic's smile. Sure, yeah, yeah, health and a long life. A good future—things we want to hear. A lot of people would pay $5 for this, even when they knew they were getting fleeced.
Madame Cora stopped. "The secret to being happy, dear, is staying nice. be a good person, no matter what," she said, and closed my palms for me. I handed her $5. It was worth it.