Mississippi River Journal
June 1, 2005
Been thinking about Dad today. He worked himself into the ground at the ripe old age of thirty-nine when I was three years old. I often wonder what he’d think about these kinds of trips I’ve been doing if he was still around. I wonder if I’d even be out doing these trips for that matter.
Sometimes I wonder just what the hell I’m doing out here. Shouldn’t I be doing the respectable thing and be working at some job right instead of wandering down a river all summer? Wouldn’t it be easier to just settle down and start going down the road that everyone else is traveling?
I feel as if I have a foot on two different trains going in opposite directions and I’m torn with which one to hop on to. If I continue with this PhD I’m probably going to end up with a decent job at a university with some time off to sneak outside every once in awhile. Then again, many professors seem to have abandoned that part of their life to chase tenure.
The other direction has me working some random jobs piecing together more of the things that really make me tick. An old friend of mine told me once that I’ll either be a graying professor somewhere or a chair maker. Right now I don’t know if I’d argue with that prediction.
I think that Dad’s early passing affects how I look at all this. I could get run over by a bus tomorrow for all I know, but I spent years doing all kinds of stupid crap and I feel lucky just to be around right now. I feel like I wasted ten years of my life to finally get to this point, so now what am I supposed to be doing with myself?
I spent the better part of my twenties floundering around from school to school, job to job, and relationship to relationship. A decade lost to decadence and depression. I’ve always a tinge of regret to all those years, but I can’t do anything about that now. Live and learn. Now I’m here at the ripe age of thirty-five, winding my way down the Mississippi River with someone I’m passionately in love with. Not exactly sure how I ended up here, but I couldn’t be happier. Jess has been a godsend, and I’m one lucky, lucky dude to be with her. Lucky indeed.
I don’t think that just going through life based just on what feels good is any way to live. I’m not much into goal setting either, but it feels great to watch something that I’ve planned and worked hard for come together. I planned on being a professor, and now that what I’ve worked toward for the last five years gets closer I just don’t know if it’s worth it anymore.
I can’t obsess about this much more, and I’m not sure this trip is helping anything. Everyday is one-hundred percent LIVING. Not a moment that goes by that we’re not experiencing the world around us. That’s a hard act to follow, and certainly harder to recreate back in the working world. I think about the Appalachian Trail every day even now, I’m sure this trip down the Mississippi is will be the same way. I swear this traveling stuff is like a drug.
Do you go on some life-changing trip only to pine away for another for the rest of your life, or do you just work your way through and never really get to those super-high points? Those super-highs also come with some awfully low points in the end as well. I honestly can’t get my head around the whole thing.
I loved these few paragraphs. I believe there are 3 kinds of people in this world, one group seeks to tame the world/wilderness/weather (if they can)/people/animals, everything in it, as a means of controling the world first, so as maybe to make sense of it afterwards, the only problem I see with this group of people is — they never really get control of anything! The world and nature, people and animals have a way of not co-operating, heh-heh… Then you have a second group of people, either humble or passive aggressive, but willing to go along with which ever way the tide takes them, or wind blows. They fit in, or are game for just about anything within reason. But primarily don’t make waves in the face of the powers that be. The third group of people are people of passion, not neccesarilly “mover’s and shakers” but truth seekers, with an appetite for marrow, or at least milk and honey. Wild does only basically describe the forces and energy they are sensetive and vulnerable to, quite possibly the original intention. Explorers and adventurures by choice or by default, as space for them within any type of establishment is usually impossible or unfulfilling. So they set out, to find and be in new alternative space, so what is it that they find? Anything sacred? That would be my overiding question for all three groups of people if I could sit them all down and ask them individually or collectively.
Seeking and exploring sure is fun, but at least one of these groups of people uses another to do their dirt work for them. One group of people sees their place in the world to be tamers of it, the other as conservationists of earth’s natural wildness, the other is simply existentialists. Where would we be without any one of them? An honest question from an idealist perspective.
I enjoyed your thread of small articles.
No single trip is ever going to quell the desire to explore. Each adventure we get in leaves us longing for more. My mother worked for many years at TWA and lost her job/retired when they sold to American. She now commutes to Chicago a few times a week to work at O’Hare just to keep the flight benefits. Even in their old age they have not lost the desire to travel.
Many people have probably told you to settle down and live your life. Your’s does not seem like the life of showing up to work, going home and watching TV as a wife prepares dinner for the kids. Go out and experience everything. Find a woman who shares these goals and marry her. Raise your children so they are always curious about whats over that next ridge or around the bend in the river.
Land in an airport in Paris with a carry on bag and a couple hundred bucks and explore…that’s what my parents do and I turned out ok.
Many will work 50 weeks of the year for two weeks of vacation. Grinding away to finally reach the cheese at the end of the maze. If your ambition is to canoe then make your life revolve around canoeing. Don’t settle for the occasional getaway.
I think you’re going to figure it out. It may not jive with what everyone else is doing but most of them would never consider paddling the entire Mississippi. Those who would want to do it have never committed to doing it and sit around reading about your trip wishing they could.
I wish I had gone to college but I missed out by living in a VW bus at a ski resort. I don’t regret my time in the mountains but I’m sure when I do have children they will someday use it against me. Finish your PhD but follow the admonishment of The North Face and Never Stop Exploring.