Wayfarer: More Than Just Sunglasses

Wayfarer: [noun] 1: A traveler, especially on foot  2: A person who goes on a journey

At this point in my life, I'm definitely not a stranger to travel. I've been a lot of places, met a lot of people, and put a lot of miles behind me. I've driven up mountains, been the sole moving object on an eternally blank landscape, and visited foreign continents. I've watched the sun rise and set thousands of miles from the people I know and love. I've also slept in WalMart parking lots, plowed through 300 miles of bleak interstate outrunning twisters in Tornado Alley, ran at full tilt towards the refuge of my car after nearly being accosted, and prepared for certain death by bedbug attack. I've felt that gut-wrenching, sinking feeling as the check engine light comes on 1000 miles from home. I've also laughed as tears of happiness stained my cheeks in one of those rare moments of clarity we all seek. My feet aching, my car moaning a fatigued hum, my eyes shadowed in dark circles of exhaustion, no clue where I'll rest my head once my energy gives out... and with a road-weary grin, I think, now this? This is really living.

Travelers of this type are a completely different breed. The thrill we seek, and even the way we perceive the journey gives a unique sense of gratification. The experience in and of itself is a sensory delight. One becomes hyper aware of their surroundings. The terrain below your feet feels foreign. The birds tickle your ears with unfamiliar melodies. The horizon appears mysterious, as if you've landed on a new and unexplored planet. The local food awakens your taste buds to flavors you've never experienced (whether or not your stomach regrets this later is a total crapshoot). Even the smells of the earth, flora, and nearby inhabitants are completely new. In moments like that, you are both evolved to a heightened sense of self-awareness, and simultaneously reduced to primitive man, relying solely on your most rudimentary sensory capabilities. It's an interesting sensation to feel so feral and so enlightened at the same time. 

A different breed of thrill seeker, indeed. I came to this realization as I stood atop a mountain pass, my feet so close to the edge that a light nudge would send me over. I contemplated stepping forward. I stood atop Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park in August of 2013. I looked out over the widest expanse of landscape I'd ever set eyes on and inhaled the brisk air. Fifty-seven degrees in August. I clutched my shirt across my chest and hastily rolled the sleeves of the cotton top down to my wrists. My father had given it to me two weeks before I left as we sorted through old clothes to go to Goodwill. It was a men's cotton shirt, its blue, red, and mustard-yellow plaid design proudly displaying its late 1970's heritage. It was the warmest thing I'd brought on this trip. At the elevation I was at, the valley became an optical illusion. If I squinted hard enough, it looked like a lawn of lush, vibrant grass with piles of gravel scattered here and there. It reminded me of our first days in the house I grew up in, when we had rocks delivered to lay the driveway with. They unceremoniously dumped two piles of gravel on the lawn and left. The reality was that the lawn before me was a forest of coniferous trees; an entire ecosystem was nestled between two giant mountain peaks, safely protected by a moat of undescendable rock. There could be deer, elk, even a buffalo down there and I wouldn't be able to see them without a decent set of binoculars. 

I dug my toe into the gravel on the shoulder of the road. There wasn't a guardrail, only suitcase-sized rectangular rocks every five feet or so as a partition. I wonder if that would actually keep my car from plummeting over, I thought. Some parts of the park had railings, but not this area. Gravel sprung from my dusty flip flop and barreled down the side of the mountain. Several years ago, I used to live in a small college town in North Carolina named Elon. A railroad track ran through the main thoroughfare, and was used both for the eternally long, slow moving freight trains as well as the high speed, nonstop Amtrak line. I lived just adjacent to it, and every day I would walk across the unfenced track to my second job, where I slung sandwiches and lattes at the Acorn Cafe. No fences, only an elevated pair of rails. Those trains lulled me to sleep quite often. One summer night while walking to the pub, I heard the rails tremble and saw the headlamp of the Amtrak. The year before, a boy killed himself on that very spot. He stood in the middle of the track with his back to the train, and just before the train hit him, he turned to face it head on. As it approached, I wondered if it was the same engine-- do they get rid of a train after something like that, or simply rinse off the blood and resume the daily route? I decided not to try and beat the locomotive; one misstep up the rocky mound could send me tumbling into the boy's same fate. 

As it flew past, unfaltering at 60 m.p.h., I watched. It's a train, it can't leap out and hurt you, I thought. I inched closer and closer until I was four feet away from it. Four feet from churning, crushing wheels and unyielding metal, four feet from certain death. Like a caged tiger, though, I knew four feet ensured my safety. I took another step in. I wanted to reach out, to touch this great steel beast. I knew I was safe where I stood, but my heart pounded as the siren blasted and my hair whipped violently. Geez, are you CRAZY? I asked myself. I drew back my hand as the street lamps shone on my face, the last car flown past in a whirlwind of leaves and dust. I didn't even realize I had begun to stick my arm towards the train. I shivered abruptly, confused at why I would do such a thing. For the sheer excitement of being so close to something that could undeniably kill me, I supposed. I crossed the track and thought little more about the event, ordering a cheap beer in a run-down college bar in a run-down college town. 

The memory of the Amtrak came rushing back as I watched the pebble careen down the mountain. There was absolutely zero percent chance of making it out alive from where I stood on this mountain pass, should I stumble over the edge. Scarier still, it wasn't an abrupt cliff wall. There was neither ledge nor railing. There was road, then shoulder, and at some hairpin, invisible border was the point where one more step put you into a rock slide down an impossibly steep mountain face. Yet there I was, standing at it, heart racing, seriously contemplating taking a step forward. I was literally one step away from death. The breeze kissed my face and the deafening silence began to push on my eardrums. Geez, what are you doing? Are you CRAZY?  I thought again for the second time in my life. 

I took one step back. My senses, awakened by adrenaline, took it all in. My eyes stretched over the expanse and greeted an endless span of hunter green, earthen gray, and the deep shades of navy in the waterfalls that pooled and cascaded down the mountain. There was a distinct absence of sound (which was louder than anything else, honestly), occasionally interrupted by the sound of a breeze whistling in my ears. My skin quivered as goosebumps crawled up my arms, chilled both from excitement and from the small, frayed hole in my father's shirt. My toes clenched into the craggy rocks below me, my shoes discarded beside me. I smelled crisp, unadulterated air that was chilly in my nostrils. My mouth was dry and tasted stale, now thirsty after the climb. 

I sat down on the rocky slope and crossed my ankles in front of me. I stared at my dirty feet, their sea foam green polish chipped from a week of barefoot abuse on the road. The fluffy cotton clouds parted and the sun peered through, its rays almost tangible. I was so near death, and in that moment, instead of being reminded of my own mortality, brought back to thoughts borne of fear, I drew a long, slow breath and reveled in the delight of my own existence. I'm not crazy. I'm a wanderer, a dreamer, and an adventurer. I'm the mortal enemy of a life mundane. I seek the thrill of standing on the edge at the thin line between "regulated" and "risky" because it brings undeniable clarity. When you're at the edge, you're not worried about bills, work, in-laws, or the daily stresses that cloud our minds constantly; you're in the most primal of states, your only concern in that moment being to stay alive. It's like an eraser on a whiteboard, clearing everything away and allowing you to focus on whatever you want, even if just for a little while, until the daily worries start crowding their way back in. I felt so alive. So free. In that moment, I remembered why I made this journey to begin with. Something as small as a footstep could take everything away, and so often we forget that. One footstep. I decided it was best to get to living while my footing is still sure.