Suddenly there’s more water in the air than I could prepare for, particularly with night about to fall. I duck under an overhang at a
KFC to quiet the mind and look at my options. It’s really pretty simple. I can sit and stay damp, or I can go out into the rain and approaching dusk and be instantaneously soaked. As always, the only answer is to let go. As I let go the fear rises, the desperation, the despair, the hopelessness of being alone with no-one to call on. I breathe, and it passes and as if magic, the rain stops with it.
With little or no hesitation I’m on my feet walking with a spring in my step. After all, there’s still an hour before dark, and with only 20 miles to go and a pile of doubts around me, there’s nothing to do but try.
I come to a good place to put my thumb out and wait a while, congnisant of the looming truth that there are two jails within thirty miles of me, making hitchhiking a high item on my list of doubts. I get to thinking of the runners, and think for a moment that I ought to just run. Again there is little hesitation and I’m off. Free and wild running along the highway for no better reason than a whim and the ability to do so.
The scenery jogs by… a beautiful sunset, fields spotted with trees, two lane blacktop and a soft shoulder that treats my feet well. I feel the ache from the many miles I’ve walked today and yesterday, but the freedom of the moment surges me past them. Again my mind flips to a thought of me turned around with my thumb out. I do so, feeling the joy of following so closely behind my intuition. After hundreds, probably thousands of cars have passed me in the past two days with only one ride, the second car stops and I climb in.
I’m surprised by the child, as parents are often to wary of the unknown to pickup hitchhikers when the child is present, and I’m ever so thankful. The father is teaching the son, and I listen with interest as he includes me in some education about the surrounding geography and historical sites. This includes mounds from an unknown civilization for an unknown reason.
My doubts all around me, I note the one that states that I have so little information about where it is that I’m trying to go. I know it’s on SR 50, and I know it’s between Chillicothe and Bainbridge, about 20 miles. And I know it’s the Highland Nature preserve and I know it’s on a particular creek, the name of which I can no longer remember.
We pass by owl creek and Keith seems to think it’s near there, but there are no signs to a highland nature preserve and we eventually find ourselves in Bainbridge which is clearly too far. I note that Keith is getting a bit anxious, and he is afraid to let me off in the middle of nowhere after dark and probably even more afraid of having to deal with the guilt of not wanting to take me home with him. I tell him to drop me off at the house with the light on just near owl creek and to go home and get some rest. He hesitates for only a moment and accepts.
The house is on the side of a large hill overlooking the highway, there’s two people in the yard who appear to be a father and son. I saw the father walking across the ridge of the hill on our first pass by and had had a hunch to ask him where the preserve was. Breathing my doubts once again I step forward I faith and ask him “is this the highland nature preserve?”
The answer comes back quite sternly “No it certainly is not”
He’s stern but not unkind, and I wonder at the reaction in his voice. I explain that I am looking for a group of people who are supposed to be camped out at the nature preserve today. His reply is to get his keys and tell me to get into the car. This is a bit suprising, but I’m not one to say no.
Our conversation as he’s driving me around turns first to the geography and some of the story of the area. Apparently the nature preserve is simply a group of people buying land in a certain area and giving it back to nature. This old man knew the former inhabitants of all these pieces of property, and indeed they appeared to totally surround his own land.
House by deserted house he took me around (really only three to five, but it seemed like more). And told me some about the inhabitants. Soon the conversation turned to faith, upon which subject we had a very deep connection. Robert is a very strict and very conservative southern Baptist, and I a ridiculously liberal interfaith nowist, but we both knew about faith. He from his life as a husband, father and farmer, and me from my life of ups, downs, ins and outs. Only later did I realize just how interesting this connection was.
The last possibility was a little out of the way house, which he seemed to think unlikely, but my heart leapt at the fact that there were lights on. I needed no further prodding, I said my goodbyes and thankyou’s and headed on to the next step of the story. The woman at the desk in the house confirmed that I was indeed in the right place and told me also that the man I had gotten a ride from and bonded deeply with was none other than the preserves current nemesis. The product of a long standing property/fence line dispute that didn’t appear to be resolveable. The differences in class and character between Robert and the sort of folk I knew to be running this sort of operation were clearly the real challenge, and I did some to alleviate that by telling her what a solidly good person Robert is and was. Willing to help me for no better reason than that I needed it, and doing it straight from the heart. I never saw either of them again as she was in a rush and I too caught up in the moment to follow up on all the great connection I’ve made on the road.
It was now pitch dark and she had pointed me up a driveway, but I could see absolutely nothing. I heard their voices though, off to my left in that huge glob of black. I walked up silently dressed almostly invisibly in my black matrix suit and entered the circle which now stood silent. Then a voice from a featureless human shaped figure: “ahh now way!” and a huge bearhug from my good friend jim, the organizer and leader of the group. And then comes John blankenstaff’s reply of “how the hell did you find us” My reply is simply a bit of faith, a couple good hunches and a hell of a lot of luck. The short answer is synchronicity. Jim went to get Jules and the circle continued with hugs and stories and smiles and laughter, and inspiration the likes of which I haven’t felt till today. It was a homecoming, from pointlessness to pointfulness, from the road to the road, but mostly from individual to communal an global action. In the morning, I would begin running for freedom.
At the time I think I thought I knew what freedom was… Now I might have a better grip on things. Then it was a run for the unfairly imprisoned, for the environment, for the rights of the red man. I had found a form of freedom myself in that I could be anywhere, anytime and feel confident that the concept commonly referred to as god would have my back. It was a good feeling, but it lacked purpose. I had finally learned how to simply be, and now I had to figure out what to do, which for now was the run for freedom.
A few days later I found another kind of freedom. I ran ten miles without stopping, and found the place inside where it didn’t matter so much. Through rhythm and a good cause, I found a place where I glided over the asphalt, out of breath and sore even, but still running, and leaving my peaceprints every step of the way.
Tyler
2002