Sleeping in the city is rough. Don’t get me wrong I am grateful for Walmart letting travelers stay in their parking lots, along with Cracker Barrel and Cabela’s/Bass Pro Shops (even though I’ve yet to stay at either of those two). This is far from the forest, I miss the forest. The solitude of it, the calmness of it. Although at times when I’m in the forest I’m like ‘I wish I was in the city’. I’m tough to satisfy right now I guess. I keep thinking back to California’s forests, there’s nothing like them, the sequoia’s, the redwoods. Oregon had beautiful forests, tall trees and the like, along with Colorado and Idaho and so forth in the west, but Cali is different (I hate that I called it Cali, couldn’t tell you why tho). It’s September 23rd and I’m in a Walmart parking lot just outside Boston, near Marblehead, closer to Salem.
I rode around Boston yesterday on the bike, took 40 minutes to find a parking spot to do so. It was ok, I don’t think anything will ever compare to riding around NY, I should almost stop riding around cities because of that. Boston was meh. It had some cool architecture and lots of amazing churches for sure. I didn’t see as many buildings to fall in love with as I did in Old Town Alexandria or New York. After Boston I went to Marblehead and saw some real old places, like the ones in Old Town Alexandria. 1760, 1724
1802, 1834 – like real old. Being as they were homes and not commercial building the architecture wasn’t all that, lots of 1 dimensional (1 dimensional being that there is no porch or multi pitch roofs, just flat faced boxes). 3 story places, some even 4 stories if you add the basement. You could totally see a Quaker influence in the places for sure. I will assume Salem is going to look the same.
Hopefully Salem is a little more taken care of than Dodge City in Kansas or Savannah, Georgia. I thought both places could of used some more tax dollars put into them. It’s funny though, when I meet people along the way and the subject of Savannah comes up, that I think it to be a little lackluster or even a little dirty and they almost get offended. Maybe I saw Forest Gump too many times or The Patriot or Fried Green Tomatoes and I’m comparing too much. I don’t know if the last two were filmed in Savannah either, but that was how I thought Savannah would look. I also thought Boston would be more like New York, maybe not as dirty but kinda like it, it wasn’t. There was nothing “wrong” with the place, except parking, parking sucked ass. Oh and you know what looked awesome, Philly, that place looked incredible for architecture. But again, no parking. I even drove to find the outskirts of the city to ride into Philly on my bike but couldn’t find the outskirts, that place was big.
So yeah, saw Boston, drove by Fenway Park – the whole outside of it is green. Saw Marblehead, cute small town, nice little fancy shops with designer clothes and gifts. You can see the direction they were taking that place and now Salem in a couple hours. Hopefully spend a few hours there and then off to New Hampshire. I was thinking of heading into Maine and up into Canada, but I don’t see that happening as of now. I would like to see all the leaves change here in New England, but I think I’m about a month early. I’m guessing if I went into Canada I would have a better chance at seeing the leaves change, that would the trip by a week or 10 days, but I’ve no real big desire to see Canada or Maine. Maybe my wanderlust is waning some or maybe they just don’t interest me. Like stopping to walk around the outside of Fenway Park and take a selfie, doesn’t really interest me. Oddly not a lot does.
While on the Cape earlier this week, I was spending time with my godmother and we talked about everything, like old two ladies sharing stories of their lives. I told her everything of my past and present and she shared the same. We knew the big version of our lives I guess you could say, but the tiny behind the scenes stuff we never knew. I was heading into this to tell you that she told me her husband Lee had two very nice cars in the garage, collectable status I’m sure – he’s a car guy. Hearing this and of course comparing myself to his car collecting; I’ve no desire of things, like none. In a conversation Lee and I were having about how I was able to do this at such an early age and not go into the poor house over it or being a lottery winner or ultra rich. I explained to him, I have nothing. I have an apartment with a few things in it, I’ve a work truck and painting equipment and that’s it. For someone who has owned a business for 17 years, you would think I would have acquired more stuff. I could afford boats and motorcycles (I used to have one) and collector cars and all that, but I’ve no desire for them, for things. I’ve friends that have all this and they enjoy the things, I just don’t enjoy the things for some reason. My life would definitely be easier if I did, I would take a boat any day of the week over wanderlust.
Now as I started going down this road to tell you of my undesiring issues it reminded me of something I was thinking when telling with my godmother of all the stories she missed out on living on the east coast. Stories of my childhood, my teenage years and my 20’s. See after 25 or so I had no longer needed to look to parents for help, nor were they taking care of me. They actually stopped taking care of me long before that, when I was 20 I think, my mother let me stay in her spare room when I had a mental break and was going to check myself into the mental hospital in SLO when I was 20. But after that, I had received no help until I was ready to get clean. Anyways, not the point. Where I am trying to get at is how I was raised.
I don’t really think about how I was raised anymore, I’ve done the journaling, the therapy, the step work. I processed the sadness and anger and fear and resentment, I haven’t had to carry that stuff with me in a long time. But in telling her stories I was surprised at how much I went through being raised. How much my dad was never there, how my mother for the most part abandoned me and my sister for drinking. How I was an emotional fucking wreck and constantly looking for acceptance by anyone. I don’t talk about my childhood much in general, cuz fact is I had food, I didn’t get beat and I had warm clothes – I had a lot more than others. But that doesn’t negate the fact that it was kinda fucked up most of the time. My sister and I were being raised by two crazy drug addict/alcoholics; it was pretty shitty lol. I don’t know, I just never really stood so far away from the emotional connection to it and looked at it. I’m able today to see it how it was like as if I am looking at someone else’s life, I think this is a good thing. Attaching myself to the past is something I strive not to do, that would like carrying rocks around with me all the time. The past just weighs you down when you attach yourself to it, good or bad. We think, that was bad and we harbor a resentment or wish it to be different. We think, that was great and we hold on to that and hope the next thing will be as great and if it’s not we are sad over it. And just because I’m unattached to it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings towards it. Telling those stories did make me feel a little sad for how I was raised but it’s fleeting, it’s not now. And to be fair, it wasn’t always horrible.
So now here we are, 8am, Walmart parking lot and waiting to go to Salem. Most everything wont open till 10am so it’s find something to entertain you till then. My legs are a bit beat up from all the riding and walking the beach the other day with my godmother, we must of walked 2 or 3 miles. I know, doesn’t sound like a lot, but walking in the sand, that pulls on all types of different muscles. The bottoms of my feets are sore along with different parts of my legs, reminds me of the time I raced in a triathlon. To go from riding to running, it’s a whole different group of muscles that fire, first day of training I remember thinking I needed a walker to help me run.
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Well, I did Salem, nice easy morning of riding around that town. It is fairly small, at least the area that holds all the witch stuff. I did a museum, checked out some real old houses. One in particular I saw was a judge’s house, built in 1640something. It is said that he interrogated some of the witches there, or who they thought could be witches. Houses from back then had these super steep roofs, the second floors overhung the first floors and most all of them were 3 stories. If it’s not that style, then they are Quaker style or a one dimensional 3 story box. The houses were simple and some had a goth feeling to them. Truth is I liked the architecture more than the witch history, I was never a big fan of that stuff. Come to find out I’m not a huge fan of much. No, I take that back, I’m a huge fan of Jack Kerouac.
I had left Salem and headed out to Lowell, Massachusetts – the birthplace and burial grounds of Jack Kerouac. When I was 18, maybe 17, I read On the Road, I want to say it was the first novel I ever read. I read that book and I fell in love with it, I fell in love with him. I went on to read a lot his books, some were as good as On the Road, like Dharma Bums and some were subpar. I could relate with him in a way I wasn’t able to relate with anyone I ever knew. I was able to feel like my dreams and feelings on life were normal cuz I found in him that he felt the same way. He was in love with life when life was happening, and life is always happening if you are looking at it with the correct perspective. Reading jack turned me on to a whole new lifestyle, turned me on to Burroughs, turned me on to Buddhism, turned me on to the idea of traveling the US and exploring the world I live in and the world in me. I forever wanted to make it to Lowell, to the city he was born in, to his final resting place. I never thought I ever would, I never had the faith in myself to take on such a feat and I had every excuse in the world as to why I couldn’t. We do that ya know, the real big things in our lives that we dream about, we find reason, which are made up lies, as to why we can’t accomplish them. Maybe had I took off at 20 and did this I would be in a different spot now, but then again I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to raise Delaiah and there isn’t one thing in this world that I wouldn’t give up to have her in my life. I got to see his gravesite, I stood there, in a sea of headstones looking down at it, bewildered. I started to well up with tears and not knowing why. I looked to the monument headstone they set just above his plot; it had his name in script with the quote “The Road is Life.” I took some pictures, a selfie which is pretty rare for me and I wondered why it had hit me so hard. The feelings of being humbled by life really took hold of me. It was disguised as feeling not worthy to have been able to accomplish this, and not even accomplish this, I didn’t set out to do “this”. These feelings of not being worthy to be so fortunate to experience all this were heavy. And it’s not that I’m not worthy, it’s like there are so many other people I want to see to get to live a dream, that deserve to experience something so special to them. I never thought I could take such a big step in my life and continue to walk down that path. I had no idea I would ever get here, as I said, it’s been with me my entire adult life. And not just to Lowell, but to setting everything aside to live my dreams, the dreams I’ve worked towards for most of my life. I stood there for a while, then got back in the van, wiped away some tears of happiness and some of sadness. I got back in the van with not a clue as to where to go next.
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