Lonesome Traveler

It's pretty obvious that I"ve been scattered as of late. Had a hard time trying to shut down my mind, slow down my heart rate etc. Completely irrational behavior, mind you, because I'm otherwise happy with my situation. But after a conversation with my brother, I was reminded of something I had forgotten along the extended pathway of my travels. I had forgotten to simply do what I know. Poetry is what I know. And moreover, the man who inspired it all, is what I know. Jack Kerouac.

And so I found myself in the dusty corner of a used bookstore in a bohemian college-student side of town, where there are as many cockroaches as beautiful colorful people, and wild musicians and artists splashing the streets and walls with color and light. I found myself huddled in the corner of the K section of contemporary fiction, searching and pleading with my eyes for his name. My dear, dear Jack. Jack Kerouac. And there it was. Three times over, three books of his I'd never read, but only heard about in reference through his other tales or biographies or literary student gatherings amidst clove smoke and coffee and ella fitzgerald. And the one that stood out to me, the one that practically flew off the shelf and into my arms like a great literary hug was the most fitting of all: "Lonesome Traveler". Yes.

For if there's anyone who has ever existed in this world that could completely put voice to the hectic and lonely world of globetrotting, it is Mr. Jack Kerouac. His words encompass the simultaneous yet conflicting desire which I believe lies at the core of every traveling poet's heart: to connect with as many people as possible, to take on their love and their pain and write about it, while at the same time remain independent, uninvolved, and solitary. The cognitive dissonance in the need to connect and distance, that is what plagues every artist, I think. Or at least it is what I think is hurting me- the constant push and pull between stay and go, between ordinary and abnormal, between stable and spontanious.

Reading the first few lines of his book brought me home. I'm at home between his written pages. His words are like great big comfortable arms, large hands smoothing my hair and thick New-England voice comforting, saying "Yes, yes. I know, I know."