Heading South

Certainly Uncertain as I Drive

Where my brother lives, on some unknown beach, I can hear the waves hitting the shore. The mornings, just like today, are full of birdsong, and fog. The air is cool but quiet, not even the slightest gust. Someone a few streets over revs their engine as chickens begin to chuckle. This is Santa Cruz, the first stop on my trip.

The past week I’ve been  insatiably restless, waiting to leave on this trip. The amount out work I’ve done to leave is hard for me to fathom. I’ve just been going, nonstop, driving all over the bay, going to auto body shops, finding little bits and pieces that I’ve been missing from my truck set up, visiting friends and family before I head out, emailing and making plans. It’s almost as if I’ve been doing this to mask the time before departure—an attempt to fill the uncertainty of waiting for email replies with chores. In the midst of this, all I’ve been wondering has been what it will feel like to get on the road, to be heading out and wandering, and not doing an errand. And for some reason, though I have a lot of plans, so many that I find myself remembering and forgetting them as the hours pass, I knew I’d feel calm once I was in the midst of traveling south.

I’m not really sure what it is about travel, about the act of going, that feels at once so exciting and calming. Maybe it’s just as simple as watching things pass beside you that brings that sense of calm, or how you just never know what exactly will happen as you go. That uncertainty, I’m sure, brings many to panic, but I do find it kind of invigorating. The world as it always is, is wholly uncertain, though we have many people out here telling us this is the way of the world or how the future will look in no uncertain terms. But it all is uncertain. And in the midst of that, I get so excited, as if I’m openly playing into the joke of chaos that is the world. It’s all uncertain, so let me see where my uncertainty brings us. It’s that, the combination of the adventure, and in it the uncertainty, along with the acceptance of all that chaos. I’m sure there are other definitions out there, but that suits me best, at least for now.

There is some joy and excitement with all this, with the unknowns of who I’ll meet, what stories I’ll end up writing, which plans will fall through, but I’m certain there will be plenty to learn. And it’s exciting, now, to simply accept that I haven’t got a clue, only a direction. South.

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I’ll be heading into the central coast for most of this week so if you all have any recs, let me know—gallery’s, bookshops, coffee shop, restaurants, hiking, surfing, camping. Would love to hear about it! I know very little of the California central coast and can’t wait to learn more.